Timeline of Events (Long Version, with Hyperlinked Documentation)

This timeline will be continually updated as new context arises. It is a work in progress. It was put together by more than one person. Events are as remembered by April Wilkens or as verified by her advocates in documentation, sometimes linked if of particular interest to her case.

Content warning: Descriptions of sexual abuse and violence.

See the post “About April Wilkens” for a brief summary of events or this condensed timeline on the FreeAprilWilkens.com website.

Contents:

BACKGROUND

1970, April Wilkens born. She attends school in Kellyville, Oklahoma. April received her Bachelor of Science at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Then April completed the graduate Prosthetics program at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, Illinois.
1989, a few years before they meet Terry Carlton (age 31) goes through rehabilitation for cocaine use in California. Terry had previously attended Oklahoma University for a few years and then returned home to work for his father at the auto dealership.
March 1994, Los Angeles Times reports and TIME magazine report on the Honda scams / bribery scandal Don Carlton, father of Terry Carlton is involved in.
Sep 2, 1992. Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (“OCCA”) Judge Charles Johnson, who is a longtime friend of Terry Carlton‘s father, Don Carlton, writes the OCCA’s landmark Battered Woman Syndrome (“BWS”) opinion in Bechtel v. State (840 P.2d 1, 1992 OK CR 55) establishing BWS as a valid defense for battered women in Oklahoma. In the opinion overturning domestic violence survivor Donna Lee Bechtel’s first-degree murder conviction and life-sentence, Judge Johnson writes this. He would later deny April’s appeals, even though she was arguing the same thing, and would not recuse himself on some of her appeals.

THEIR RELATIONSHIP

Early Fall 1995, April Wilkens meets Terry Carlton at Acura of Tulsa, an auto dealership he owned, while shopping for a car. April is a board-certified prosthetist and owns/operates a prosthetics and orthotics business. April is 25 years old and Terry is 37 years old at the time of their meeting.
October 1995. Terry takes April on their 1st date, a trip to Dallas, Texas, including 1st class flights and limousine transportation.
Nov 17, 1995. During closing arguments at a murder trial in Tulsa County District Court of another woman, Michelle Murphy, in the death of her infant, First Assistant DA Tim Harris erroneously tells jurors that blood found in two places at the scene “was not the child’s blood” and implies it was Michelle’s…even though he possessed a report from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation that said Michelle’s blood type was different than the type found at the scene. Michelle is wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder and later sentenced to life without parole. DA Harris will also personally prosecute April after Terry’s death in April 1998. Michelle will finally be declared innocent and exonerated almost two decades later on September 12, 2014.
Nov 26, 1995. Tulsa’s First Assistant District Attorney Tim Harris, who will eventually prosecute April after Terry’s death, takes over as Acting District Attorney after District Attorney David Moss dies.
Early December 1995. Terry takes April on a trip to Jamaica.
December 24, 1995. Terry proposes to April Christmas Eve. She accepts. They plan to marry in April 1996.

THE ABUSE

2 women had filed protective orders unbeknownst to April (Sherry Blanton an ex-wife) sometime before this:
Early 1996. Mental and verbal abuse begins. Terry starts to be very critical of April and have unpredictable outbursts of anger.
Early 1996. Terry takes April on a trip to the Bahamas.
April 25, 1996. Violence begins on April’s 26th birthday. Terry grabs April’s throat.
Summer 1996. Terry and April go on a trip to Amsterdam and Paris in Europe. He gets angry and hits her with a cap because she wants to sleep in on their last day in Amsterdam. Terry rapes April for the first time.
August 26, 1996. Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Charles Johnson officiates at the wedding of Terry’s father, Don Henry Carlton, to his third wife, Shirley Bettis. Terry introduces April to Judge Johnson at the wedding. Judge Johnson and Don Carlton are longtime friends. Appellate Court Johnson signs the marriage certificate (pg 83 here for certificate)
November 12, 1996. Terry violently attacks April in their hotel room during a trip to Rome, Italy. He is angry because she tried to call her son when he wanted to sleep. April is Terry’s guest on the Rome trip paid for by Great Empire Broadcasting, which owns KVOO radio station in Tulsa. Terry’s father, Don Carlton, and Don’s 3rd wife, Shirley, are also on the Rome trip along with other businesspeople who spend a lot of money advertising with Great Empire Broadcasting. During the attack in their hotel room, Terry pounces on April, chokes her, shoves his elbow into her eye socket, twists her arm, and hits her from the side. He also slams her on the floor, against a wall, and in a door jam while trying to throw her out of the room while she is naked. The attack is interrupted when Steve Hatchett, a man staying in an adjacent room who is also there courtesy of Great Empire Broadcasting, starts pounding on the door, saying he knows about Terry and challenging Terry to come out and fight a real man. Terry partially opens the door and then slams Mr. Hatchett’s arm in the door. Mr. Hatchett is injured. Terry claims April is crazy and he didn’t lay a hand on her. April suffers multiple physical injuries, the most serious and painful of which is an injury to her hip. Terry is removed from the hotel room. April reports Terry’s attack to Rome police and is told by an officer that in Rome, domestic violence committed by a boyfriend is typically considered a private matter and not usually handled by police.
November 15, 1996. After returning to Tulsa from Rome, April meets with now-Federal Judge Claire Eagan, who was an attorney with Hall, Estill law firm at that time. Ms. Eagan goes with April to get a temporary protective order against Terry that same day. Sometime before Terry is served with the temporary protective order, April records Terry arrogantly admitting he has choked, beat, and raped her and that he is the sole perpetrator of violence between them. April records Terry to prove she is telling the truth, where he admits to raping and assaulting her. (And see court Transcript 10 & 11). See page 41 here. And see here.
November 18, 1996. April meets with then-attorney Claire Eagan again. They review the tape recording April made of Terry arrogantly admitting he has choked, beat, and raped her and that he is the sole perpetrator of violence between them. April gives a copy of the tape to Ms. Eagan.
Roughly Sometime Around Nov 18-25, 1996. April gives Tulsa Police Detective Mike Nance a copy of the audiotape of Terry admitting he choked, beat, and raped her. Detective Nance tells April there is nothing the Tulsa police can do because all of the crimes Terry admits to on the tape happened in foreign countries.
November 25, 1996. Terry violates the November 15, 1996, temporary protective order by calling and threatening April not to involve the law. He tells her that he can still get to her and would rather see her dead. He also assures her that he will be present at the hearing for the permanent protective order. April is frightened and too intimidated to pursue a permanent protective order against him.
Circa Dec 1996. Terry calls April often claiming he is becoming extremely depressed and even suicidal. He pleads with April to help him. She makes an appointment for Terry with Dr. Mark Teter, a family physician whom she has seen in the past, and meets Terry there.
Early 1997. Terry continues to call April often claiming he is depressed and suicidal. He says he is taking Serzone, an antidepressant. At some point, he says he is very ill and April takes him to a minor emergency center. A few weeks later, Terry tells April he has been diagnosed with Guillain-Barre’ Syndrome, which Webster’s defines as “a polyneuritis of unknown cause characterized by muscle weakness and paralysis.” April takes care of Terry as his condition appears to deteriorate to the point that he can no longer write legibly, drive, or perform many ordinary activities of daily living. April is Terry’s only caregiver during this time. She even misses work to care for Terry. April shares custody of her son, Hunter, with her ex-husband, and takes care of Terry only when Hunter is with his dad.
Feb 16, 1997. April makes a followup report with police about the incident that occurred at Terry’s home on February 14, 1997.
February 14, 1997. Valentine’s day. Terry asks April to stop by his house to pick up her Valentine’s Day present. April has her son, Hunter, with her, so only agrees to a quick visit. While Terry and April are upstairs talking, and Hunter is downstairs, Terry’s ex-girlfriend calls. April is hurt. She gets upset and starts to leave. Terry drops the phone and angrily charges after April. When he is about to grab her, she throws water in his face. Terry grabs her by the shoulders, puts her on the floor with his weight on top of her, and begins to twist her arm. April is surprised by Terry’s attack and strength, because he has previously been acting so weak and feeble after supposedly having Guillain-Barre’ Syndrome. Terry stops the attack when he hears Hunter coming up the stairs. (Terry has never attacked Hunter.) April gets up, runs downstairs, and calls 911. Police arrive as she is leaving with Hunter. Terry is not arrested.
Sometime around April’s 27th birthday, April 25, 1997. Terry’s sister, Brenda Carlton Bruton, contacts April wanting her to go to Greece with Terry. Tulsa’s Channel 8 TV station is paying for the trip because the Carlton’s spend so much money on advertisements. Terry wants to take April to Greece for her birthday. April does not want to go to Greece or anywhere with Terry. She is deeply depressed. She has come to feel like she has no control left over her own body, mind, and life. She is broken and blames herself. She is so ashamed and humiliated. She has no self-esteem or self-worth left at this point. April tells Terry that she cannot afford to be away from her business, and Terry promises to give her money for her business if she goes with him to Greece. April is still reluctant to go, but Terry insists and April goes. Terry’s dad and stepmom, Don and Shirley Carlton, are also on the trip. Terry brings cocaine on the trip. This is the first time April has seen Terry use cocaine or known of him using it since they met. Terry pushes April to try the cocaine. April tries it with him but does not like it because it numbs her throat. This is April’s 1st time ever using cocaine. Terry continues to use cocaine on the trip. He becomes agitated after he runs out of cocaine and attacks April in their hotel room. He pins April on the bed and threatens to rape her “up the ass.” April screams and he lets her go. She tells him that if he doesn’t stop acting this way, she will tell his dad. Terry threatens to blackmail April with photos he took of the two of them having sex. He also threatens to break his promise to help her financially with her business. April tells Don and Shirley anyway about Terry attacking her and the cocaine. Don seems relatively unconcerned. Later, Shirley, who is close to Terry’s age, tells April that she (Shirley) has been abused by men who have money and men who don’t, and it’s much better to be abused by a man who has money than one who doesn’t. April is stunned.
Early May 1997. Terry is blackmailing April with pictures he took of them having sex…..April tells Mr. Bruton what happened and shows him the evidence she took from Terry’s house because she wants to get help for Terry. Sometime later, April records a second tape of Terry admitting to abuse and gives it to Tulsa Police Detective Mike Nance. (We’ll call this second tape the “lost tape” because another copy has never surfaced that we know of.) He promises to give the pictures to her, but he doesn’t. April goes to his house unannounced and enters using her own key that he gave her previously. She goes downstairs to his basement on the 1st level and sees a lot of used syringes and cocaine in plain view. She is surprised because although he previously told her that he completed rehab for cocaine abuse in California in 1989, he also told her that he had never used IV drugs. April grabs the syringes and cocaine and runs upstairs from the basement to the 2nd level ground floor towards the front door. Terry is upstairs on the 3rd (of 4 levels) in his house, where his bedroom is located. Terry hears April and starts running downstairs and chases her to her car. As she is backing out of his driveway, he beats in her driver’s-side window, cutting up her left arm. He leans in her car, grabs her keys from the ignition, and then runs back into his house after he sees his neighbor, Dr. Brent Laughlin, outside watching. April’s car is stalled in the middle of the street. Dr. Laughlin comes to her aid, and she tells him what happened, including about the syringes and drugs she discovered. Dr. Laughlin goes to Terry’s front door and talks to Terry through the door. Terry wants April to come back inside, but April refuses. Eventually, Dr. Laughlin persuades Terry to give back April’s keys. Terry quickly opens his front door, throws the keys outside, and closes the door again. Dr. Laughlin gives April back her keys and she drives back to her home. Terry’s brother-in-law, John David Bruton, shows up at April’s home to check on her. Mr. Bruton says Dr. Laughlin called Terry’s family about what happened. Mr. Bruton expresses sympathy for April, telling her that he knows how Terry is. April tells Mr. Bruton what happened and shows him the evidence she took from Terry’s house because she wants to get help for Terry.
May 6, 1997+. April obtains a 2nd temporary protective order against Terry. Afterwards, April is again too intimidated and afraid to get a permanent protective order because Terry threatens to kill her, and because he is still blackmailing her with revenge porn.
July 1997. Terry is treating April like a princess again. He promises to stop using IV drugs for her. April feels she has to help Terry. April is also struggling with her business. Terry and his attorney, Tony Graham, have been helping April fight a meritless non-compete lawsuit filed against her company. Terry has also been helping April’s business financially with cash-flow problems arising in large part from the legal expenses incurred while fighting the lawsuit as well as her absences from work while with Terry.
Late July 1997. April finds several, but not all, of the pictures Terry is still using to blackmail her. She leaves his house and he calls and leaves her a threatening message on her call notes.
Early Aug 1997. April is becoming increasingly isolated, depressed, and dependent on Terry. She is staying with Terry when her son is with his dad. April discovers Terry is still using IV drugs. He wants her to try it with him. They use methamphetamine intravenously together. This is April’s 1st time ever using IV drugs.
Approx. Aug 8-9, 1997. Terry, a guitar collector, accuses April of taking one of his expensive guitar necks. April did not take the guitar neck and doesn’t know what happened to it. Terry tells her that he will only give her a beating if she comes up with the guitar neck, otherwise he will kill her. He holds her at gunpoint with a Glock 9mm pistol all weekend, saying she must either produce the guitar neck or admit she got rid of it or destroyed it. It is April’s weekend and week to have her son, but Terry will not let her go.Terry rapes her. He makes her write a $7,000 check to him for the guitar neck. (April later later stops payment on the check.) Terry then calls police and tells them that April is a crazy ex-girlfriend who broke into his house. April tells police what really happened and is told by an officer that she is not making sense and should just go home. When April tells the officer that she is too scared and traumatized to be alone, he responds that he cannot babysit her. Terry later apologizes to April and says his maid found the guitar neck in his house. April is convinced Terry made the whole allegation up just to terrorize her and then called police first to get the upper hand before she could call them.
Mid Aug 1997-Early Dec 1997. April changes her phone numbers, which are unlisted, and refuses to speak to Terry. A prowler repeatedly comes into and around her home. April has only seen the prowler briefly in the dark from a distance while he is running away, not close enough to see who he is with certainty. She calls police several times, but the prowler is never caught. April is sure it’s Terry.
October 22, 1997, Anastasia Elizabeth WitbolsFeugen dies (aged 18). She was the girlfriend of Terry Carlton’s nephew, Justin Bruton, Don Carlton’s grandson.
October 24,1997 Justin Bruton, nephew of Terry Carlton and grandson of Don Carlton, found dead of apparent suicide.
Early Dec 1997. Terry has somehow managed to get April’s new phone numbers and persistently calls her. He says that he has been trying to talk to her. April avoids his calls.
Approx. Dec 6, 1997. April’s childhood friend, Carrie Howard Gaston, calls April pleading for money to feed her family and pay rent so they don’t get evicted. Carrie sounds desperate. April wants to help them, but can’t afford to herself. April gives in and asks Terry to help them. Terry agrees only if April comes to his house to get the money. April goes to Terry’s house with Carrie and her husband, Allen Gaston. Terry writes a check to April and also adds an additional $2000 for himself that he wants April to bring to him after she cashes the check. He also asks April to purchase merchandise at Walmart for him and gives her his credit card to use. Carrie and Allen are in a hurry and can’t go to Walmart. Terry has April use his car, and April drives to the bank by herself while Carrie and Allen follow in their car. April cashes Terry’s check, gives Carrie all of the money except $2000, and then goes shopping for Terry at Walmart. When April tries to pay for Terry’s merchandise using his credit card, a Walmart employee calls Terry for permission, and Terry lies and claims he did not give his credit card to April to use. Terry arrives at Walmart with police, but tells police that he doesn’t want to press charges and he will take April home. April gives Terry the $2000. Instead of taking her home, he takes her to his house. April runs and locks herself in an upstairs guest bedroom. The door to that bedroom can be locked from the inside and/or outside. Terry then locks the door from the outside, trapping April in the room. When Terry unlocks the door and tries to enter, he can’t get in because April locked the door from the inside. Enraged, Terry kicks and beats in the door, and he rapes April. Terry forces Valium down April’s throat and she passes out.
December 6, 1997. April wakes up in Terry’s guest bedroom after passing out from Valium he forced down her throat after raping her. April’s back hurts so badly she can’t get out of bed. April pleads with Terry to call 911 for an ambulance. When paramedics arrive, April tells them that Terry raped her. Paramedics call police. Police arrive and see that the bedroom door has been kicked in. April tells police what happened. Terry admits to Officer Kimberley Presley that he drugged April and says April is “one big bruise.” Officer Presley handcuffs Terry but later removes the handcuffs after Sergeant Rick Helberg, who was not present, orders her to release Terry and just file a report. Officer Presley takes April to a local hospital where April is treated by Karen Morgan, a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, who documents April’s injuries including vaginal tearing, bruising, and redness. Afterwards, April asks Officer Presley to get her purse back from Terry, and Officer Presley refuses to do it herself, telling April that Terry even makes her (i.e., Officer Presley) uncomfortable. Terry is never arrested for the rape.
Circa Mid Dec 1997. Terry comes to April’s home with a document he has drawn up and wants her to sign stating they had consensual sex and he did not rape her. He insists she stay with him at all times and not cooperate with the rape investigation. Terry keeps April with him for days while police investigate until she finally convinces him that she will not cooperate with the investigation.
Oct 15, 1997+. Terry files a lawsuit against April in Tulsa County District Court alleging breach of contract for not returning the engagement ring. Terry asks for in excess of $10,000 in the suit. (Months later, Terry admits to April that he took the ring from her home before filing the lawsuit.)
Mid-Late Dec 1997-Spring 1998 Overview. April tells Terry that she is done with him forever no matter what. She tells him to stay away from her and leave her alone. She means it, even if Terry kills her. Terry won’t let April go. April has recently met another man, Luke Draffin, who offers to help. Luke tells April that he works undercover in drug enforcement and is divorced from a relative of Ed Willingham, who also works in law enforcement. April went to school with Ed in Kellyville, Oklahoma, the small town where they both grew up. (For a time, Ed was the undersheriff of Creek County, which includes Kellyville and neighbors Tulsa County. Later, Ed was the lead investigator for the Creek County District Attorney before getting into his own legal troubles in 2007, but that’s a different story.) April met Luke through a childhood boyfriend whom she also went to school with in Kellyville. Luke knows a lot about Kellyville and other people April knows there, including her old friend Carrie Howard Gaston, which helps put April at ease. She comes to regard Luke as a friend. They sometimes use meth together. Terry becomes openly, insanely jealous and spirals further out of control. He terrorizes April relentlessly and fiercely stalks her. He watches her home while parked throughout her neighborhood. He taps her phone lines, bugs her home, and even steals her mail. April avoids Terry’s calls, and he keeps showing up at her home. Terry tells April that if she will just talk to him, he won’t keep coming to her home. April refuses to speak with Terry and won’t let him in her home. He breaks into her home repeatedly and attacks her. He repeatedly ransacks her home. He steals her gun and pepper spray. He beats and kicks in the French doors leading directly into her bedroom from outside. As a result, the doorframe is busted and the locks are destroyed. April wraps a bungee cord around the inside doorknobs to secure the doors, and Terry busts in the doors again, causing one of the knobs to break off. April then tries to keep Terry out by piling suitcases and furniture inside her bedroom directly in front of the doors, but later she is trapped inside after he breaks into her home another way and kicks in her interior bedroom door which she has locked to try to keep him out. Terry tells April that if he can’t have her, no one will. Terry also threatens April’s son’s life after April tells Terry that she doesn’t care about her own life anymore. Terry has never attacked April’s son or ever threatened to harm him before. April tells Terry that he has to stay away from them because she will protect her son. April tells her son’s dad, Eric Wilkens, about Terry’s violence and threats. April implores Eric to keep their son safe with him because Terry is dangerous and keeps breaking into her home. Eric then files for sole custody of their son. Luke gives April a 38-caliber pistol for protection. April calls police numerous times when Terry breaks in, but he almost always leaves just before police arrive. She wears a panic button around her neck that triggers her alarm system and calls police. Terry cuts April’s phone lines. April runs to her neighbors’ homes multiple times and calls police when Terry is breaking in. April’s neighbors witness Terry stalking and terrorizing her and repeatedly breaking into her home. April’s neighbors also see Terry leave April’s home almost every time right before police arrive. One neighbor, Glenda McCarley, witnesses Terry chase April down and drag her by the hair of her head after she tries to run from him. Ms. McCarley also witnesses Officer Aaron Tallman refuse to help April on one occasion after she sees Terry break into April’s home. Ms. McCarley is so outraged that she takes down Officer Tallman’s name and badge number to report him.
Early Feb 1998. Terry enters April’s home with a Glock 9mm pistol, a stun gun, pepper spray, and a billy club. April is in her bedroom and does not realize Terry is inside of her home until he enters her bedroom. April tells Terry to get out of her home. Terry tells April that she “owes” him “a f*ck” and he is going to take it. He charges at her with the stun gun, rips off her clothes, and tries to rape her on her bed. April manages to wiggle out from underneath him as she tries to talk him into stopping. She is able to reach the pistol Luke gave her, which she has hidden at the head of her bed. Terry is standing up beside the bed at this point. April points the gun at Terry’s head. He is enraged and starts to grab the gun. April pulls the trigger, but the gun does not fire. Terry is furious and attacks April again, then abruptly stops when he hears Luke enter the house. Terry runs off and flees from April’s home. (Later, after breaking into her home again, Terry steals the gun that Luke gave April.)
Feb 21,1998+. Terry calls April and says he is coming to her house because she refuses to talk to him. April calls 911 and stays on the line. Terry arrives at her house and starts beating on her side door with a metal object. April is terrified and tells Terry police are on their way. Police arrive as Terry is trying to back out of April’s driveway and get away. Terry is arrested by Officer Troy Dewitt outside of April’s home on February 21, 1998, at approximately 3am with a loaded, chambered 9mm pistol and stun gun. Terry’s Glock 9mm pistol later fires when tested by police to see if it functions. See police report on page 69 of this document. An emergency protective order is issued to April at that time. Officer Dewitt advises April that Terry is not even allowed to call her. Terry violates the protective order by calling April from jail, and April calls police. Officer Aaron Tallman responds and tells April, “We just keep expecting to find you dead.” Officer Tallman refuses to enforce the emergency protective order even after April shows him her caller ID proving Terry is calling her from the jail. Officer Tallman tells April that she is beginning to annoy him and claims her emergency protective order doesn’t say Terry can’t call her. Nothing is done, and Terry is right back on April’s doorstep after he bonds out of jail.
Terry boasts around this time “500 bucks baby, that’s all it takes” to bribe a police officer
Mar 25, 1998. A warrant is issued for Terry’s arrest (or see page 72 of this document) after he fails to appear in court on a gun charge stemming from his arrest outside of April’s home on February 21, 1998.
April 2, 1998+. April grabs her purse and flees from her home to escape from Terry as he is about to break in again. She runs and stops in a church parking lot beside a busy main street about a block away. She sees Terry’s car parked in front of her home. April desperately prays out loud to God for help. Officer Aaron Tallman shows up. He asks April who she is talking to, and she responds Jesus. Officer Tallman acts like April is mentally unstable because she is praying out loud to God. April points out Terry’s car parked in front of her home and tells Officer Tallman that Terry is breaking in again. Officer Tallman sees Terry’s car parked in front of April’s home, but smirks and tells April that Terry can park there because it’s public parking. Officer Tallman summons Parkside mental hospital staff to the scene. To make matters worse, Officer Tallman tells the mental hospital staff that April keeps calling the police and saying someone is breaking into her home but no one is ever there when they arrive. Officer Tallman transports April to Parkside mental hospital, where staff treat April like her fear of Terry is a paranoid delusion. She is doped with high-powered psychotropic drugs and asked if she still believes someone is trying to harm her. April feels like she is living in a real-life horror show. Although April was not arrested, Officer Tallman later claims April’s purse was lying wide open with drug paraphernalia and a small amount of drugs in plain view. Officer Tallman does not arrest Terry despite the fact that Terry still has an outstanding warrant for his arrest for failing to appear in court after being arrested outside April’s house with a loaded, chambered Glock 9mm pistol on February 21, 1998.
Sometime between April 2-8, 1998. Terry tries to see April at Parkside hospital, but she refuses to see him.
Apr 8, 1998+. Parkside mental hospital staff continue to dope April with high-powered psychotropics and treat her like she is imagining someone is trying to harm her. April leaves by taking a nurse’s keys and unlocking the doors while the nurse is distracted playing cards. April takes a cab home. Shortly thereafter, Terry uses a key and breaks into April’s home. Terry abducts April at gunpoint using the 38-caliber pistol Luke previously gave her. April had changed her locks and doesn’t know how Terry got a key. Terry takes April to his house. He is angry because she refused to see him while she was at Parkside hospital. Terry tells April that he had police take her to Parkside mental hospital because he thought a stay there would teach her that he is the only person who cares about her. He taunts her about how little it cost him to get Officer Tallman to overlook the warrant for his arrest and take her to a mental hospital instead: “500 bucks, baby, that’s all it costs” to bribe a cop, Terry boasts. He keeps telling April that he is going to rape her, slit her throat, and kill himself. He keeps saying it will be a “double suicide” even though April is not suicidal. His threats are made all the more real to April because he also tells her that his only nephew, Justin Bruton, recently murdered his girlfriend by shooting her in the face and then committed suicide by shooting himself. Terry hatefully says “the b*tch got what she deserved” and threatens April is next. Terry is up for days holding April captive at his house.
Apr 11, 1998. Terry has been awake for days and is still holding April captive at his house after kidnapping her from her home at gunpoint. Terry attacks her in his kitchen on the hard tile floor, then takes her to his basement. He is acting deranged and saying things that don’t make sense. He acts as if he sees things flying in the air. Terry tells April that she still “owes” him “a f*ck” and he is going to take it and then slit her throat and kill himself. Terry pushes April down onto a couch and something sharp stabs April in her left rear. Terry is on top of her and she screams. His TV comes on out of nowhere and Terry is startled. He stands up and is trying to figure out how the TV came on. He is freaking out. April removes the sharp object from her rear. It looks like a guitar tuning device or ice pick. While Terry is still freaking out and distracted, April runs upstairs and manages to grab three pistols from Terry’s house before escaping out the front door. April runs across the street where Dr. and Mrs. Brent Laughlin live. Mrs. Laughlin is home and lets April in. April calls a domestic violence hotline rather than police because she does not trust police to arrest Terry. Police Officer James Bennett responds and talks to April. April tells Officer Bennett what happened and gives him the three guns she took from Terry’s house: the 38-caliber pistol he used to kidnap her from her home, a 22-caliber pistol, and a Sig-Sauer 9mm pistol. (Later in his report, Officer Bennett claims April only gave him two guns instead of three, and one gun goes missing.) April explains that she took the guns so Terry won’t be able to use them to hurt her or himself. She tells Officer Bennett that Terry is threatening to kill her and himself. April also tells Officer Bennett about their history, including about the incident IN EARLY FEBRUARY 1998 when Terry was trying to rape her in her home and she pointed a gun at his head and pulled the trigger but it did not fire. Further, she tells Officer Bennett about Terry’s arrest outside her home with a gun and stun gun on February 21, 1998, and that Terry failed to appear in court on a gun charge stemming from that arrest. Officer Bennett also goes to Terry’s house and talks to Terry. Perhaps Terry lies and says April pointed a gun at his head and pulled the trigger but the gun did not fire on this day, April 11, 1998??? After meeting with Terry, Officer Bennett claims that April said she put a gun to Terry’s head on this day, April 11, 1998, and pulled the trigger but it did not fire, which April did not say and is not true. Rather, once again, April told Officer Bennett about the incident IN EARLY FEBRUARY 1998 when Terry was trying to rape her in her home and she pointed a gun at his head and pulled the trigger but it did not fire. Whether Officer Bennett is confused or gets it wrong on purpose, Officer Bennett claims April is the threat, not Terry, and takes April back to Parkside mental hospital. In compliance with protocol after someone is claimed to be suicidal, Terry is also separately transported to Parkside hospital for a brief evaluation, but Terry is released the same day shortly after arriving at the hospital. April is again detained at Parkside hospital, while Terry is left free to continue his reign of terror in April’s life. Officer Bennett does not arrest Terry despite the fact that Terry still has an outstanding warrant for his arrest for failing to appear in court after being arrested outside April’s house with a loaded, chambered Glock 9mm pistol on February 21, 1998.
April 11-22, 1998. Parkside mental hospital staff continue to dope April with high-powered psychotropic drugs and treat her like she is imagining someone is trying to harm her. She tries to use the patients’ phone to call someone for help and is told she cannot by a nurse, the same nurse whose keys she took when she left the hospital on April 8, 1998. When April continues to try to use the phone, the nurse hastily calls for a team of men to restrain April even though April has never been threatening, combative, or violent at any point during her stay at the hospital. April is traumatized by the team of men overpowering her, and she struggles and resists them as they force her into 4-point restraints with her wrists and ankles tightly bound to a flat bed. The restraints are so tight they cut into April’s wrists and ankles, hurting her. Later, when April pleads with the same nurse to please remove the restraints so that she can go the restroom, the nurse refuses and forces April to use a bedpan to relieve herself. The nurse taunts April and asks if she has learned to behave yet. The nurse smiles sadistically and appears to take pleasure in April’s agony. Sometime around this time, Terry contacts a friend of April’s, Shannon Broyles, and asks Shannon to help him plan a surprise birthday party for April when she gets out of the hospital. Terry tells Shannon that he is trying to win April back. Shannon refuses to help Terry because she knows about Terry’s violence and abuse.
April 22, 1998. April is transferred from Parkside mental hospital to another mental hospital, Eastern State Hospital in Vinita, Oklahoma (now defunct), after she continues to insist that she is not delusional and Terry really is a dangerous threat. Shortly after arriving at Eastern State Hospital, April calls Terry because she suspects he had her transferred to Eastern State Hospital from Parkside Hospital. April pleads with Terry to please let her go. Terry says he did not have her transferred to Eastern State Hospital. He says he wants her at St. John’s Hospital in Tulsa under the care and supervision of his own personal psychiatrist, Dr. Theresa Farrow. April previously saw Dr. Farrow at Terry’s insistence for a little while in 1997 but stopped. April suspects Dr. Farrow may be in love with Terry, although the feeling is not mutual. The thought of being under Dr. Farrow’s care gravely concerns April given how much influence Terry seems to have over her. April just wants Terry to get on with his life and stop controlling hers. The high-powered, mind-altering psychotropic drugs that April is being forced to take in the hospital are messing with her mind, making her feel weird and sick. She knows she didn’t need these psychotropic drugs before Terry and she does not need them now. (She knows she doesn’t need or want illegal drugs anymore, either.) What April needs is Terry’s violence and control over her life to stop so that she can feel safe again and know that her son is safe. She knows she is not bipolar. She knows she is not delusional. She knows she is not paranoid. She is a domestic violence and rape victim. Terry, her rapist and abuser, is still out to get her and has threatened her child. The danger is real. And thus far no one at Parkside Hospital or Eastern State Hospital seems to believe her or care. That alone feels maddening. April feels persecuted because she continues to be institutionalized, treated like she is imagining someone is trying to harm her, and doped with potent mind-altering psychotropic drugs following violent incidents Terry initiates, while he is left free to terrorize her despite still having a warrant for his arrest for failing to appear in court after being arrested outside her home with a loaded, chambered Glock 9mm pistol on February 21, 1998. If Terry would just leave her alone and get on with his life, none of this would be happening. April just wants this nightmare to be over.
April 26, 1998. Terry shows up at Eastern State Hospital driving a brand-new car, a red Acura NSX-T, and parks in the parking lot directly behind the ward where April is housed. He stays there almost all day stalking her. Mental Health Aide Riza Johnson informs April that Terry is there to see her. Ms. Johnson observes that while April is usually “always cheerful” and “pleasant to be around,” April gets “nervous” and appears like she doesn’t want to visit with Terry. April is worried about what Terry might do if she refuses to see him, so she goes ahead with the visit after about 20 minutes. Ms. Johnson escorts April to visit with Terry on a porch and stays nearby due to protocol. Ms. Johnson observes that seeing Terry makes April “uneasy.” April is so uneasy she tells Terry that she will talk to him later. Terry leaves upset because he wants to talk to April now. On their way back to the ward, Ms. Johnson and April walk around to the back of the building and see Terry parked behind the building. Ms. Johnson witnesses Terry holler at April and tell her to come to the car. April refuses to go to Terry’s car. Ms. Johnson observes Terry is “edgy” and “agitated.” Terry makes Ms. Johnson “very uncomfortable.” (In contrast, Ms. Johnson observes April never gives the hospital staff any trouble all.) Terry stays in the parking lot and doesn’t leave. Later, when April and other patients are escorted outside for a break, Terry gets out of the car and approaches April. Terry tells April to go to the car with him, and it is clear to Nurse Betty Cantrell that April does not want to go with him. Nurse Cantrell tells Terry that April can’t go to the car but they can visit near her. Nurse Cantrell observes that while April is normally “friendly” and “pleasant” to be around, April is “nervous” and “tense” in Terry’s presence. Terry has balloons and tells April that the car is her birthday present. April tells Terry that she cannot accept the car and they are never going to be together. Terry won’t take no for an answer. He keeps pressuring April. Terry asks April if she is in love with Luke. Terry tells April if she will just tell him that she is in love with someone else, he will leave her alone. Finally, April tells Terry that she is in love with Luke. She just wants Terry to leave her alone. Instead, Terry goes ballistic and threatens April. “B*tch, you’re gonna pay!” he spats under his breath. Terry insists April to go to the car with him, and Nurse Cantrell tells Terry that’s not going to happen. Nurse Cantrell witnesses Terry act “hostile” toward April and curse at her several times. Nurse Aide Neva Lanthrop witnesses Terry yelling, jumping up and down, flapping his arms, and acting so strange that even the mental patients are eyeballing him. Terry storms off to the car and then starts to come back toward April. Frightened, April tells Nurse Cantrell that Terry carries a gun, and Nurse Cantrell intervenes and tells him to leave. Nurse Cantrell witnesses Terry walk back to the car, slam the car door, and peel out of the parking lot while throwing gravel and spinning around. (Riza Johnson, Betty Cantrell, and Neva Lanthrop all testified at April’s trial in April 1999.)
April 26 or 27, 1998. Terry calls his friend Robert Martin and laments April told him that she is in love with somebody else.
April 27, 1998. April is released from Eastern State Hospital into a drug treatment program, 12 and 12, in Tulsa. Shortly after arriving at 12 and 12, April leaves in fear of what Terry might do to her son if he cannot get to her or what he might do to her home. April flags down a stranger who is kind enough to give her a ride home. When April arrives home, she sees that an outside door leading directly into her bedroom is standing open. She enters her home to find that Terry has already ransacked and pillaged it yet again. He also left messages on sticky notes and wrote on her mirrors. She recognizes his handwriting. One note reads, “April, it’s been real.” Her phones still do not work since he previously cut her phone lines. She does not bother finding a way to call police because she is afraid they won’t arrest Terry and it will only make him angrier. She knows Terry somehow has a key to her home because he used it to enter her home and abduct her at gunpoint the last time she was there on April 8, 1998. Having a key to April’s home makes it infinitely easier for Terry to sneak up on her and catch her off guard when he breaks in. She is too terrified to stay home alone. She needs some time to think. April goes for a walk around her neighborhood. She stops in at the Blue Rose Cafe located at 35th and Peoria on the same block as her home and calls Luke from a payphone. She tells Luke what has happened and asks for his help. Luke says he is really busy and can’t come pick her up but she can come see him later. After dark, April decides to go inline skating around her neighborhood and puts on her Rollerblades. She skates to her neighbor Glenda McCarley’s house and talks for about two hours with Ms. McCarley about what’s been happening with Terry. Ms. McCarley asks April why she has on Rollerblades. April explains it won’t take long for Terry to find out she’s home and come after her, and she is wearing Rollerblades because he can outrun her and she can skate faster than she can run. April tells Ms. McCarley that she can’t stay at her own home because it isn’t safe. Ms. McCarley lets April use her phone to try to find someone to help. Sometime around 10pm, April calls her friend Shannon Broyles and asks Shannon to come pick her up, but Shannon has already put her baby down for the night. April then asks Shannon if she knows anyone who has a big guard dog that can stay with her for protection, but that doesn’t pan out, either. April also pages Luke but doesn’t hear back from him. April then goes inline skating around her neighborhood. She is still too afraid to stay in her home.
April 28, 1998. April is still too afraid to go home. She continues to skate around her neighborhood. Around midnight, she skates to the Blue Rose Cafe located at 35th and Peoria on the same block as her home. She has a soda and watches a band play a couple of songs. She uses a payphone and again tries unsuccessfully to reach Luke. April stays at the Blue Rose Cafe for about 15 to 30 minutes, and then goes back to inline skating around her neighborhood. She is skating in a parking lot about a block from her home when a taxi comes by. The taxi driver asks if she needs a ride, and she decides to go to the Tulsa hotel where Luke is staying. April is still wearing Rollerblades when she arrives at the hotel. April skates into the hotel’s office and asks the clerk to call Luke’s room, which is upstairs, and let Luke know she’s there to see him. The clerk calls Luke’s room and then tells April that Luke will not see her. April asks the clerk to please let Luke know it’s urgent, and the clerk refuses. April is surprised, confused, and dismayed that Luke won’t see her and that he doesn’t even open his door to say hello. Although Luke previously gave April a key to his hotel room, she won’t use it because she won’t just barge in unwelcome. She thinks Luke probably has a woman with him in the hotel room. April doesn’t know it at the time, but Terry has actually bought Luke off: Terry has offered Luke a classic Harley Davidson motorcycle worth around $25,000 plus $5,000 cash to stay away from April and give him another chance with her, and Luke has accepted Terry’s offer. Luke won’t see April on this occasion at the hotel because he and Terry have “made a deal.” Clueless and frustrated, April plops her backpack on the hood of Luke’s car and hangs the key to his room on his visor before skating away with her backpack. April is skating through a nearby Mazzio’s parking lot when she sees a female police officer, Jane Masek, driving a police car and flags her down. April tells Officer Masek what happened with Luke and asks for a ride home. Officer Masek first checks to make sure April has no warrants and then takes April home. April doesn’t bother telling Officer Masek about what’s going on with Terry because April is afraid Terry won’t be arrested and getting the police involved again will only make Terry angrier. Officer Masek drops April off at her home sometime around 2am. April recalls it was around this time of the night when Terry was arrested outside her home with a loaded, chambered Glock 9mm pistol and a stun gun on February 21, 1998. April is traumatized, scared, overwhelmed, and at her wit’s end. She is a sitting duck in her own home and does not know where to turn for help. Terry previously told April that if she will just talk to him, he will not come to her home. So rather than continue to wait in terror for Terry to show up enraged at her home again, April decides to go to his house and try to make peace with him so they can both get on with their lives. She is still wearing the same black Trek bicycling outfit she’s had on since she started skating earlier in the night. April puts on her white tennis shoes, grabs her backpack, and walks to Terry’s house. She is carrying a picture of her son with her in her backpack.

FINAL ATTACK

April 28, 1998 (Cont’d). April arrives at Terry’s house sometime around 3am and knocks on the front door. Terry answers the door holding a small 22-caliber pistol. He tells April that he only has the gun with him because it’s late. He says he is glad April is there and invites her in. Terry is cordial and wants April to go upstairs to his bedroom with him, but April refuses and they go downstairs to his basement den instead. April sees her and her son’s belongings that Terry stole from her home strung out all through his basement. Terry wants April to use drugs with him, but she says no. She desperately wants to have a clear head during their conversation. She tells Terry that she is there to talk with him and come to a peaceful resolution so she can feel safe and he can get on with his life. Terry wants to talk about Luke. He tells April that she doesn’t really know Luke. Terry says he offered Luke a $25,000 classic Harley Davidson motorcycle plus thousands in cash to stay away from her and give him another chance with her. Terry says Luke took him up on his offer and sold her out. April tells Terry that she can’t be with him regardless of whether or not another man is in the picture. She tells Terry again that being with him is not safe for her or her son. April tells Terry they can never be together again. She urges Terry to get help and go to drug rehab. He claims he doesn’t need to go to rehab again and can quit on his own. Terry says he will go to rehab if April will be there for him when he gets out. He presses for a commitment from April. April continues to refuse to get back together with him even if he goes to rehab. As they talk, Terry’s demeanor goes from cordial to agitated. Sometime around 5am, Terry wants April to use heroin with him, which she has never used before nor seen Terry use before. April refuses. He is extremely short-fused and intolerant. He insists April use methamphetamine with him. Although April has used meth before, she has never used the batch of meth that Terry has at his house on this occasion. Because different batches of meth can vary widely in potency and effect, April tells Terry she’s only going to use a very small amount to see how it affects her. She tells him that she wants to play it safe because this is her first time using this particular batch. He agrees. She mixes a very weak solution of mostly water and partially injects herself to keep him from injecting her. She feels no effect. April’s urinalysis later in the day is negative for all drugs. Terry injects himself with methamphetamine and heroin. Afterwards, April goes upstairs to the only restroom that has a vent. When she opens the door to exit, Terry is standing there pointing the 22-caliber pistol at her and he says, “I’m going to take the f*ck you owe me.” He says she’s never going to come around and he’s tired of talking. “Now you’re gonna see a real beating,” he tells her. At gunpoint, Terry forces April into his bedroom. He keeps pushing her. He asks her again if she will be with him if he checks himself into rehab, and she still says no. He shoves her down on his bed. At first, he holds the gun to her head, but he ends up putting it in his nightstand. He tells April he is going to kill her after he rapes her. He pulls off her shoes and hurls them across the room. He yanks down her pants, ripping them along the inner right thigh area. April begs Terry to please kill her before he rapes her, but that only infuriates him more and he responds, “You’re gonna be a dead b*tch!” Then he violently rapes her, ripping her as he enters. As he rapes her, he keeps rambling on about how she has “the ass of a 14-year-old” like the one who used to babysit his dogs in Texas, the one he “used to f*ck.” It is sickening and painful to April, and she just wants to die.
April 28, 1998 (Cont’d). April pleads with Terry to just kill her and get it over with. “You’re a dead b*tch!” he spats and he punches her in the head and reaches around her neck and tries to break it. Her neck cracks. April asks Terry how he can have an erection and be so excited when he knows she doesn’t want to be with him, and he becomes even more sadistic. The rape is excruciating and seems to go on and on forever. When April can’t take it anymore, she tells Terry that things don’t have to be this way and if he will just stop, she will willingly have sex with him later and even act like she’s enjoying it. It takes some convincing, but it finally works and Terry stops. Then he masterbates in front of her while she is lying there numb in a daze. April tries to convince Terry to get some rest for a while. He agrees but keeps changing his mind and getting in and out of bed. He finally decides to go back downstairs to the basement with April because he’s afraid April will leave if he goes to sleep. April asks if she can put her shoes back on before they go to the basement, and Terry tells her no because she might try to run. Terry takes April into the hall bathroom and forces her to douche in front of him because he doesn’t want any evidence left. He pulls out a douche bottle from a box sitting on a shelf in the bathroom. He hands her the douche bottle without a nozzle because he doesn’t know a nozzle needs to be attached. She stands over the toilet while he watches her douche as best she can with no nozzle attached to the douche bottle. He throws the empty douche bottle into the wastebasket in the bathroom. April is horrified that Terry premeditated raping her long enough to purchase a douche beforehand. They return to the basement den, where Terry insists she inject heroine with him and won’t take no for an answer. He is extremely agitated and short-tempered. He mixes heroin and meth and draws the mixture up into two syringes from the same spoon. April tells Terry that she will inject herself so that he won’t inject her. Terry has already injected drugs so many times that he struggles to find a vein to inject himself. (At April’s trial, the medical examiner had a chart showing injection sites in various stages of healing all up and down Terry’s arms, legs, and torso. His autopsy revealed methamphetamine and heroin in his system.) While Terry is distracted trying to find a vein to inject himself, April pretends to inject herself and empties the drugs in the syringe onto the floor. Terry is becoming more and more frustrated trying to inject himself. April tries to persuade him again to lie down and get some rest. He says that he will but claims he needs to use the drugs first. He thinks there may be a problem with his syringe. He has run out of new syringes, so he has April clean old syringes with bleach for him. He transfers the drugs to a bleached syringe and tries again to inject himself but still has trouble. April suggests Terry needs a few minutes alone to concentrate and asks if she can use the phone to call someone for better drugs. She only tells him that hoping he’ll let her go get the phone. It works. He says okay, probably because he also thinks she is high, and tells her the phone is upstairs on his nightstand. While upstairs looking for the phone, she sees his 22-caliber pistol in the nightstand. She checks and sees the gun is fully loaded with one bullet already in the chamber, and she knows Terry wasn’t just trying to scare her with it when he raped her. She quickly hides it in a back pocket of her vest along with his keys, cash, and credit cards that are also right there. She just hurriedly grabs everything she can. She wants to protect herself and also take any means he has to quickly pursue her if she can get away. April has only been gone a couple of minutes when she hears Terry starting to come upstairs again. She quickly grabs Terry’s handheld house phone, mobile phone, and RadioShack police radio scanner from the nightstand and hurries back downstairs to the basement den with him. Terry becomes even more rampant and charged up after he is finally able to inject himself with the mixture of heroin and methamphetamine.
April 28, 1998 (Cont’d). April believes it’s pointless to try to escape by running out of the house because while Terry is awake because Terry can outrun her…and even if she reaches one of his neighbors’ homes and is let inside before Terry catches her, of which there is no guarantee, the neighbor will likely call police but Terry won’t be arrested even though he STILL has an outstanding warrant for failing to appear in court after being arrested outside her home with a loaded gun…and he will only be madder and more dangerous…and he will just keep coming after her wherever she is. She can’t think of anywhere she can go where he can’t get to her. April keeps trying to convince Terry to get some rest, which might give her a chance to sneak out of the house with enough lead time to get far enough away that he can’t quickly reach her, which in turn will give her more time to try to figure out where to go and what to do next. She wants to be long gone before he realizes it. Terry eventually says he is going to lie down and goes upstairs. April stays in the basement den and waits for Terry to lie down but continues to hear him moving around upstairs. Terry’s house is older and creaky, and movement inside resounds throughout it, so April is planning to escape out the exterior basement door located in the utility room adjacent to the basement den. One problem with leaving through the exterior basement door, though, is that it leads directly into Terry’s backyard which has a tall privacy fence and locked gates, the closest of which is an iron gate with a deadbolt, so April knows she can’t easily get directly out of the backyard and will likely need to go through Terry’s garage in order to escape. The side garage door is near the exterior basement door and both are accessible from the backyard. April plans to sneak out of the exterior basement door into the backyard, enter Terry’s garage through the side garage door, and then leave the property through the large automatic garage door that opens to his driveway. Terry’s garage is not attached to his house, so he is much less apt to hear April escaping through the garage than if she tried to sneak out through the creaky house by going back up the basement staircase and out an upstairs exit. April hopes Terry’s side garage door is unlocked but if it’s not, April thinks there is a key to it among the keys she got from his nightstand. She is not sure if there is a key to the gates separating the front and back yards. April starts to prepare for her escape while she is alone in the basement den and Terry is still moving around upstairs. Except for the gun, April empties her vest pockets into her son’s small camera bag, which Terry took from her home and is now in the basement den, and then puts the camera bag into her backpack. She puts some other small items from the basement den that Terry took from her home in her backpack as well. She puts Terry’s mobile phone in her backpack so she can use it outside where he won’t hear after she sneaks out of the house. She puts Terry’s garage door opener, which is also in the basement den, in her backpack thinking it might help her escape. She tiptoes into the basement utility room to the exterior basement door and places her backpack beside the door so that it will be easy to grab when she sneaks out. She also puts her backpack there so it will be out of the basement den and therefore out of sight in case Terry comes back downstairs to the den before she is able to escape. Because the exterior basement door creaks when opened, April is afraid Terry will hear it if she waits to open the door when the house is quiet, so she goes ahead and opens the door and leaves it slightly open while Terry is still upstairs making noise and is less apt to hear her.
April 28, 1998 (Cont’d). April tiptoes out of the basement utility room back into the basement den. She sits in a chair at a table in the basement den and waits for Terry to stop moving around for a while, indicating he might be asleep. April herself hasn’t been able to sleep for over 24 hours. She’s mentally and physically traumatized and exhausted, but she knows she has to stay awake in order to survive this nightmare. Terry returns to the basement and starts frantically looking around. He says nothing and starts to go back up the stairs. April reminds him that he is supposed to lie down. Terry comes back down the stairs again and swiftly overpowers April, handcuffing her hands together in front. He handcuffs her right wrist first. Then he pulls her arms together and handcuffs her left wrist. April panics. She had no idea Terry owns handcuffs. “Bitch, where’s the gun?” he asks furiously. He jerks her up by her wrist out of the chair and starts to search her pants for the gun. April is scared he will find the gun. She tells Terry that she hid the gun from him so he can’t use it on her. Terry stops searching April when he realizes her pants don’t have pockets. He looks deranged, maniacal, frightening, and fearless. Terry tells April that he is going to rape her “up the ass” and kill her. He starts yanking her toward a couch, and then he lets go of her and heads toward the couch without her. (Later that day, police find another gun on the back of that couch.) With her hands handcuffed in front, April does not think she can reach the gun hidden in a pocket over the small of her back. She knows when Terry starts to sodomize her, he will find the gun. April is convinced she is about to die a slow, torturous, painful death. She’s terrified. Frantic, she manages to reach the gun and pull it out. Terry turns back around to his left, sees the gun, and is further enraged. He lunges and is about to grab the gun when she fires. April is afraid for her life. She hears his voice and it startles her, and she instinctively continues to fire until the gun is empty in a matter of seconds. It is not a conscious choice to keep firing. Terry dies very quickly and does not languish. April is in shock. She can’t stop crying. Terry’s two dogs, Sydney and Cool Breeze, enter the house through the open exterior basement door and come directly to April, startling her again. (Terry had both dogs when April met him, and she loves them like her own.) Oddly, neither dog acknowledges Terry’s body on the floor. It’s as if the dogs have come in solely to make sure April is okay. The dogs are loving and affectionate to April, comforting her. Her mind is spinning. Terry’s death was quick and merciful compared to the slow and torturous rape he put her through earlier and the painful sodomy he was trying to subject her to when he died, not to mention all of the other times he viciously assaulted her. April knows without a doubt that Terry intended to murder her after he had his fun torturing her. She wishes she could have died a quick death like he did instead. This is April’s state of mind at this moment in time. At the same time, she is devastated that she killed Terry despite all of the horrific and monstrous things he did to her and was planning to do. April is overwhelmed with grief. April returns the dogs to the backyard via the exterior basement door and then returns to the basement den. She covers Terry’s body with a blanket and sits in a chair nearby. She walks over and kneels beside him and touches the blanket over his left hand as though holding his hand through the blanket. She cries until she can’t cry anymore.
April 28, 1998 (Cont’d). April is still in shock and her thoughts are racing. Suddenly, she thinks Terry may have said he was paralyzed and to call an ambulance after she started firing. She keeps going back and forth in her head wondering if he said that or not. She didn’t hear what he said because she was so startled and panicked. She is in utter turmoil. April longs to hold her son and is comforted to know he is finally safe. She is relieved that Terry won’t ever be able to kill her son like he threatened to do. She plans to call the police but first pages Luke from Terry’s house phone because she doesn’t want to be alone with the Tulsa police after she calls them. Luke doesn’t respond to the page. With some difficulty, April slides her hands out of the handcuffs using hand sanitizer. Terry’s phone rings and April answers it. Her friend Carrie Howard Gaston is on the line calling Terry. April tells Carrie what happened. April says she is going to call the police herself. She says she wants to hug her son first and laments that can’t happen. After the call, Carrie calls the police. Police arrive, and April opens the door and lets them in. April fully cooperates with the police and answers all of their questions. Officer J. Gann tells April they are responding to a shooting and April silently nods her head yes. Officer R. G. Lawson asks April, “Did you shoot him?” April answers, “Yes.” Officer Lawson asks April, “Where is the gun?” April answers, “It’s downstairs.” Officer Lawson then asks April, “Where is he?” And April answers, “Downstairs.” Officers Lawson and Gann go downstairs to the basement while Officer Laura Fadem stays upstairs with April and they talk. Officer Fadem asks April what happened and April begins telling her. April explicitly tells Officer Fadem that Terry beat and raped her earlier that morning before she shot him and was trying to sodomize her when she shot him. April asks for medical care and a rape exam. At some point, Officer W. Forester tells Officer Fadem to read April her Miranda rights and she does. This is the first time April is informed of her Miranda rights (see this OCR text-searchable document about this issue. Example: Search “Miranda” using ctrl+F). April continues to answer Officer Fadem’s questions and tell her what happened. April again asks Officer Fadem for medical care and a rape exam. Officer Fadem tells April that she will have to give a statement downtown before she can have medical care or a rape exam. April tells Officer Fadem that Terry made her douche after he raped her, and April asks Officer Fadem to have police look for the discarded douche bottle in the wastebasket in the upstairs hall bathroom, but no police officer or detective ever looks there for the douche bottle. April also asks the police to go to her home and see that Terry broke in and ransacked it, but no police officer or detective ever does that, either. Inside Terry’s house, police do find another gun belonging to Terry in the basement den on the back of the couch that Terry started yanking April toward when he was about to sodomize her before she shot him. April did not know Terry had another gun on the back of that couch. At some point, police also find Terry’s hidden arsenal of illegal grenades and fully automatic rifles in his house. April did know about those and it scared her. Officer Fadem transports April downtown to the Tulsa Police Detective Division, where she is interrogated by Detective Ken Makinson in the presence of officers Fadem and Focks. Mind you, April was brutally beaten and raped by Terry earlier in the morning. She is injured and needs medical attention. She’s been fighting for her life. She’s just killed another human being, a devastating thing in its own right. She’s been awake for over 30 hours and is thoroughly mentally and physically exhausted. She’s surrounded by antagonistic police. Naturally, she is unnerved and overwhelmed. Sometimes April makes sense during the interrogation, but at other times she is rambling and incoherent. Being painfully anxious and insecure, she bursts out in fits of nervous laughter. After the interrogation is over, Officer Fadem finally transports April to Hillcrest Hospital for a rape exam, which starts around 1pm. Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Kathy Bell examines April and documents April’s numerous physical injuries including vaginal tears, bruises on her head and body, and redness on her neck and hands. April’s urinalysis is negative for all drugs. Officer Fadem transports April back to the Tulsa Police Detective Division. Officer Fadem then takes April to the Tulsa jail, and April is booked into jail…where she will soon become acquainted with a whole new world of violence and abuse.
April 29, 1998 April is charged with 1st degree murder in Tulsa County District Court Case# CF-98-2173. She is initially represented by attorney Daman Cantrell through the Tulsa County Public Defender’s Office. April is never given a bond.
Sometime just before April 1999 jury trial. DA Tim Harris offers April a plea deal of manslaughter with a sentence of 20 years, which April is told is offered with Terry’s family’s blessing. No one tells April at the time that with good-time credits, she would discharge a 20-year sentence and be released free and clear with no parole in less than 10 years. April keeps thinking about her young son and how if she is locked up for 20 years, her son will grow up without his mother. Plus, the memory of Terry’s violence is fresh and raw in April’s mind, and spending 20 years in prison seems especially unfair in light of all the monstrous things Terry did to her and all of the times police failed to stop him. In April’s ignorance about the way the justice system really works, April honestly believes she will get a fair trial and all of the evidence of Terry’s violence and police officers’ malfeasance will be presented. See this.
Apr 29, 1998. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an article titled “Tulsan Shot to Death at Midtown Residence Former Girlfriend Jailed” (see this link) by Nicole Marshall reporting that April killed Terry “following what police and neighbors described as a history of domestic discord.” The newspaper reports “five live grenades were found in the basement” of Terry’s house as well as “rifles, shotguns and a small quantity of narcotics…..According to court records, Wilkens was granted two emergency protective orders in the past alleging that she had been abused by Carlton. Both were later dismissed. She filed for the first order in November 1996, stating that she received severe contusions during an altercation. She said they were in Rome when he choked her and threw her down, according to records. The second emergency protective order was filed in May 1997. According to court records, Wilkens claimed that Carlton had choked, tackled, and dragged her around a room. She said they were in Greece from April 30 to May 2 and that during that time he tackled her and squeezed her ribs. According to court records, she said the violence had escalated in the past year. Court records show that Carlton had filed suit against Wilkens in January, alleging breach of contract. According to the suit, Carlton proposed marriage to her…and gave her an engagement ring….Carlton and Wilkens decided not to marry….Wilkens allegedly refused to return the ring, and Carlton filed suit, asking in excess of $10,000. In February, Carlton was arrested on a complaint of transporting a loaded firearm after police reportedly found him yelling outside Wilkens’ residence, according to police records. When they stopped him from driving away, they found a loaded Glock 9 mm in the passenger-side floor board of the vehicle, records show. He was charged Feb. 21 with transporting a loaded firearm. He failed to appear at a March 25 court date in connection with the charge.”
Apr 29, 1998 – Jan 25, 2000 (Jail Overview) April waits a year in county jail for trial and then remains there another nine months before being transferred to prison. The overcrowded Tulsa jail is teeming with violence and abuse. Threats abound. Safety is virtually nonexistent. Some inmates are kind while others are hateful and cruel. Same goes for the jail staff. Some jail staff are extremely abusive and treat inmates, including April, like the scum of the earth. Inmates are allowed to have next to nothing and told when to eat, sleep, shower, you-name-it. Privacy does not exist. Calls are monitored and recorded. Mail is opened and read. The jail is filthy. The food is bad. Medical care is substandard at best and typically slow in coming if it comes at all. Visiting with family and friends happens only through a glass window and there is never any contact. April longs to hold her son again every single day but can’t. The separation from him is heartwrenching. Sometime around the summer of 1998. April tries to commit suicide in jail by cutting both of her wrists in the middle of the night. She is discovered by another inmate who alerts staff. April is transported to a hospital emergency room where her wrists are sutured. After being transported back to jail, she is placed on suicide watch for about a week. Suicide watch is pure hell. The conditions in April’s cell on suicide watch are horrendous. She is alone and shivering cold in a frigid cell. She is never given a blanket. She is allowed no clothing whatsoever and made to wear something like a thin paper hospital gown. It feels like the air vent never stops blowing cold air. The tiny cell is filthy. The metal sink and toilet are filthy. She is not allowed to have any toilet paper in her cell and must ask for some every time she needs to use the restroom. Sometimes, it takes hours to get toilet paper because some officers don’t want to be bothered and get annoyed when asked. When she is given toilet paper, she is only allowed a few small squares each time. April has become a spectacle. Other inmates are tasked with watching April through the window in the locked cell to make sure she doesn’t try to kill herself again. Some are kind while others are cruel and taunt her. April feels like being on suicide watch would make her suicidal if she wasn’t already. She has never felt so alone, worthless, sad, depressed, humiliated, weak, and hopeless in all of her life. She feels like a burden on her family. She just wants to die and end this nightmare for everybody.
*Sometime around summer or fall 1998. Attorney Chris Lyons begins representing April in the Tulsa murder case after being hired by her parents. (*Note: The specific date Chris Lyons began officially representing April can be found on the Tulsa County District Court Case# CF-98-2173 docket, which shows exactly what day he entered his appearance.)

TRIAL

Nov 3, 1998. Tulsa DA Tim Harris, who became Acting DA in November 1995 after DA David Moss died, is elected to his first term as Tulsa County District Attorney.
Jury Trial April 4-24, 1999. OSCI case report. Tulsa County District Court Case# CF-98-2173.
April 4, 1999. April’s jury trial begins in Tulsa County District Court murder Case# CF-98-2173. Judge Michael Gassett presides. Tulsa District Attorney Tim Harris is the lead prosecutor. Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Brett-Nightingale is the assistant prosecutor. April is represented by attorney Chris Lyons. Exculpatory evidence is either disregarded or never even presented. DA Tim Harris and Assistant DA Rebecca Brett-Nightingale accuse April of lying about Terry’s violence. They wrongfully mischaracterize Terry’s violence as mutual combat, as if April attacked Terry and he defended himself, and the rapes as consensual rough sex. They paint April up as a bad person because she used drugs and use that along with her mental hospital stays in the weeks before the shooting to falsely portray her as a violent, sadomasochistic, coldblooded murderer. Never mind that Terry’s violence and abuse led to April’s drug use and mental hospital stays. DA Tim Harris viciously verbally attacks April on the stand and falsely accuses her of ransacking her own home, going to Terry’s house for drugs with the intent of murdering him, and shooting Terry while he is passively sitting in a chair holding a guitar and begging for his life–none of which is supported by the evidence. In addition to Judge Eagan’s testimony and the audiotape of Terry admitting he choked, beat, and raped April NOT being presented, the outstanding warrant for Terry’s arrest and April’s negative urinalysis from the day of the shooting are also NOT presented. During closing arguments, DA Tim Harris tells the jurors deciding April’s fate that “had the defendant allowed the State of Oklahoma to come to her aid, [Terry Carlton] might have been punished, and he might still be alive….If April Wilkens had really been serious about her fear of Terry Carlton, she would have allowed the system to come to her aid….She also likes to cry rape. When in trouble, cry rape. Everybody listens….you know, all you have is the defendant’s side of the story, because [Terry Carlton] can’t talk.” (Trial Transcript Volume XV at 3055-56) Assistant DA Rebecca Brett-Nightingale tells April’s jurors that April “had sexual intercourse with Terry Carlton that night. It wasn’t rape. It was consensual….Terry Carlton did not….rape her that night.” (Trial Transcript Volume XV at 3016) April is stunned. She feels like she has been raped all over again. On top of everything else, contrary to the law, the jury is not given the option of convicting April of manslaughter, which carries a minimum sentence of four years, or of any offense less than first-degree murder, which carries a minimum sentence of life in prison.
Trail continued (context). April’s trail attorney, Chris Lyons, represented her horribly. Lynda Driskell provided an affidavit saying April’s trial attorney told her that he didn’t know how to reach Now-Judge Claire Eagan.(See November 18, 1996 in Timeline). And yet Claire was a magistrate in the US District Court by the time her trial rolled around. Chris Lyons picked and highly recommended John Call to April’s family as a Battered Woman Syndrome expert. Never mind Lynda Driskell, her actual counselor and a real BWS expert, who we’re sure would have done it for free and actually explained things accurately, would have been better. Unfortunately, her trial attorney persuaded April’s family to dish out thousands of dollars for John Call, who put the nail in her coffin.

And when April asked her trial attorney why he didn’t introduce the warrant for Terry’s arrest for failing to appear in court after being arrested at her home with a loaded gun, he told her there was “no way to get it in.” That seemed so unfair to her given that different officers on two separate occasions encountered April and Terry just weeks before the shooting but didn’t enforce the warrant — instead, hauling her off to a mental hospital. The warrant should have been used to impeach them both and also show that April’s belief that she could not trust police to protect her was reasonable.

When challenging her state conviction, you would think that the fact her missing star witness, Judge Eagan, would have worked in April’s favor, but, as fate would have it, the SENIOR federal judge in the US District Court in Tulsa at the time was Thomas Brett, the uncle of Rebecca Brett-Nightengale, the assistant DA at her trial. April’s federal challenge was initially assigned to Thomas Brett, who did NOT divulge his relationship to Rebecca Brett-Nightengale and had to be asked to recuse after April read in the Tulsa World that they are related.
Apr 23, 1999. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an article titled “Defendant Wanted to Leave Town, Her Neighbor Testifies” (see this link) by Bill Braun reporting “A neighbor of April Rose Wilkens’ testified…that Wilkens seemed to be making arrangements to leave town” on the night before Terry Carlton was killed. Glenda McCarley told jurors that….Wilkens made several phone calls from McCarley’s Brookside home after 10 pm on April 27, 1998….Wilkens was dressed in black and wearing in-line skates when she went to McCarley’s house on April 27. ‘She said she could skate faster than she could run,’ McCarley said. She said that on a prior occasion, she was awakened by ‘a woman screaming’ and saw Wilkens run from the defendant’s house. Carlton grabbed her by the hair and dragged her behind a fence, according to McCarley. She said there were other occasions when police went to Wilkens’ residence and Carlton had left ‘just in time’ to avoid officers. ‘It was almost a joke among the neighbors about how he had the timing down,’ McCarley said. Officer Troy DeWitt said police were dispatched to Wilkens’…home around 3 a.m. Feb. 21, 1998, regarding a report of a ‘man with a gun at a back door.’ Carlton ‘took off very quickly’ in reverse in his sports car and seemed ‘pretty upset’ that police stopped him, he indicated. A loaded pistol was found in a bag on the floorboard of his car. Carlton was arrested and charged with transporting a loaded firearm, a misdemeanor, records show. A stun gun was also found in his car. Wilkens ‘was very upset and seemed frightened,’…The officer said he had been to that house about four times before and that was the first time he had found both of them there.” The newspaper also reports that “DISTRICT ATTORNEY TIM HARRIS AND CO-PROSECUTOR REBECCA BRETT-NIGHTENGALE MAINTAIN THAT WILKENS’ MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS AND SEVERE ABUSE OF METHAMPHETAMINE WERE FACTORS IN REPORTS THAT SHE WAS NERVOUS, UPSET AND BEHAVING STRANGELY AFTER CONTACTS WITH CARLTON.” (emphasis added) As if Terry didn’t really viciously verbally, mentally, physically, and sexually abuse April. As if the relentless abuse and violence Terry inflicted on April didn’t lead to her mental health problems and drug abuse.
April 24, 1999, April convicted of first degree-murder. The jury recommends April be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. April and her family are devastated.
May 27, 1999. Although April was never arrested for drug possession, DA Tim Harris charges April with drug possession in Tulsa County District Court (case # CF-99-2575 )for the April 2, 1998, incident wherein April ran from Terry, who was about to break into her home again, and police officer Aaron Tallman did not enforce the outstanding warrant for Terry’s arrest but instead took April to a mental hospital. April is represented in the drug possession case by Public Defender Julia O’Connell.
May 20 1999. Around the same time that DA Tim Harris files a drug possession charge against April, Terry’s father, Don Carlton, acting as administrator of Terry’s estate, also files a wrongful death lawsuit against her in Tulsa County District Court. A local attorney, Chad Richardson, soon offers to represent April for free in the wrongful death lawsuit and counter sues Terry’s estate for rape and abuse. The civil litigation draws on for years and April eventually ends up representing herself.
May 28, 1999+. The Tulsa World newspaper runs an article announcing DA Tim Harris filed a drug possession charge against April for the April 2, 1998, incident that happened a few weeks before Terry’s death. DA Tim Harris is quoted in the article saying that the charge should have been filed a long time ago so that Terry’s life might have been saved. Never mind that the drug charge stemmed from the April 2, 1998, incident wherein April ran from Terry, who was about to break into her home again, and police officer Aaron Tallman did not enforce the outstanding warrant for Terry’s arrest but instead took April to a mental hospital…and April was not arrested for drugs or anything else. Still in jail reeling from her murder conviction, April learns DA Tim Harris has filed the drug possession charge against her when she sees her mugshot beneath the sensational headline “Killer Faces Drug Rap” in the May 28, 1998, Tulsa Word newspaper. April feels like the abuse baton has officially been passed from Terry Carlton to Terry’s father, Don Carlton, and DA Tim Harris. She feels utterly defeated and overwhelmed by the big money and powerful forces arrayed against her. She believes DA Tim Harris does Don Carlton’s bidding and INJUSTICE is for sale. She’s convinced this is all happening because DA Tim Harris regards Don Carlton as a moneyed, important somebody and her as a poor, worthless, insignificant nobody…and she’s a woman, no less. Although she has no proof at this point, she believes DA Tim Harris and Don Carlton are friends colluding together to torment her and make her life a living hell. She can’t believe this is how our so-called justice system really works.
Jul 7, 1999. April is sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in Tulsa County District Court murder case# CF-98-2173.

POST-CONVICTION

July 8,1999. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an article titled, “Abused Woman Gets Life Sentence” by Bill Braun, reporting April’s murder conviction and life sentence have caused a “deafening” outcry from domestic violence victims’ advocates. The newspaper reports April’s “case drew immediate attention because Wilkens’ defense, battered woman syndrome, is fairly new and virtually untested in Oklahoma courts….But the explanation didn’t satisfy the jury, and the resulting guilty verdict stunned local domestic violence activists who fear the trial’s outcome may have set a harsh precedent for cases involving abused women. ‘They are sending a clear message to the abuser it’s OK to abuse us,’ said a domestic violence survivor who said Wilkens’ case mirrors her own.”One of April’s jurors tries to defend the verdict by saying they looked at the evidence and what April said happened could not have happened, which is patently untrue because the evidence at trial supported April’s testimony. Apparently, jurors were swayed by DA Tim Harris‘s and Assistant DA Rebecca Brett-Nightingale’s subterfuge. After all, Tim Harris is the Tulsa District Attorney, a prestigious public official, and most people tend to give deference to District Attorneys, a fact the United State Supreme Court has even recognized. To save face and counter the public backlash from April’s conviction and sentence, DA Tim Harris has his office release a false statement to the Tulsa World (and The Oklahoman?), which is also included in the article, emphatically claiming that April was NOT a battered woman, (or see this link ) that April and Terry were both violent during their relationship, and that April was more violent than Terry: “‘It’s not that we don’t believe in the battered woman syndrome,’ said First Assistant District Attorney Sharon Ashe. ‘It is accepted in the law in this state. But if we feel it’s a valid defense, we are not filing the case at all.’ And April Wilkens is not a classic case of a battered woman, Ashe said….TULSA COUNTY PROSECUTORS CONTEND WILKENS WAS ANYTHING BUT A CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF A BATTERED WOMAN. THEY SAY DRUG ABUSE, NOT DOMESTIC ABUSE, MADE WILKENS SNAP AND PULL THE TRIGGER. ‘SHE DIDN’T ACT IN SELF-DEFENSE,’ ASHE SAID. ‘SHE WASN’T IN A RELATIONSHIP WHERE SHE WAS A BATTERED WOMAN. SHE WAS IN A RELATIONSHIP WHERE THERE WAS VIOLENCE PERPETRATED BY BOTH OFFENDERS, AND SHE WAS THE WORST OFFENDER….We feel sad that the victims (of domestic violence) feel that we’re not sympathetic to their cause. We are. We file many, many domestic violence cases a year. It’s astronomical.'” (emphasis added)]
Jan 25, 2000. April is transferred from jail to prison. She is initially housed at the state-run maximum-security Lexington Assessment and Reception Center, a men’s prison in Lexington, Oklahoma, where women are processed at the time before being shipped to a women’s prison.
March 2000. April is transferred to the state-run Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, Oklahoma’s maximum-security women’s prison in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She is housed in the same housing unit where death row prisoners are housed. She is assigned to work in the kitchen scrubbing pots and pans and cleaning five days a week for eight hours a day and, like other prisoners, is paid less than $15 per MONTH.
? 2000 April appeals.
June 5, 2000. Affidavit from April Wilkens about tape, Chris Lyons trial attorney, etc.
June 13, 2000. Letter from Zuhdi to April.
July 10, 2000. Fines doc (?). J April pleads “no contest” to the drug possession charge that DA Tim Harris filed against her in May 1999 in Tulsa County District Court case # CF-99-2575 for the April 2, 1998, incident wherein she ran from Terry, who was about to break into her home again, and police officer Aaron Tallman did not enforce the outstanding warrant for Terry’s arrest and instead took her to a mental hospital. April pleads no contest only after her Public Defender, Julia O’Connell, tells her that none of Officer Aaron Tallman’s history of refusing to protect April from Terry would be admissible to impeach him at a trial for the drug possession charge and if she is convicted, any sentence she gets would run consecutive to her life sentence for the murder conviction. April takes the deal because she is scared and overwhelmed. The nightmarish memory of her murder trial still plays in her mind. Plus, she did use drugs in the past. April is sentenced to two years on the drug possession charge to run concurrently with her life sentence on the murder conviction.
July 11, 2000. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an article erroneously titled “Drug Conviction Adds Two Years to Woman’s Murder Sentence” wherein April’s Public Defender, Julia O’Connell, is quoted saying that DA Tim Harris’s filing of the drug possession charge against April was an act of “meanness” and prosecutors gain “absolutely nothing” with a two-year sentence that will NOT add to her prison time because it runs concurrently with the life-sentence she already received for the murder conviction.
Aug 23, 2000. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an article titled “Parkside Received Warning” by Omar Gillham reporting “Parkside Hospital officials in July were warned of possible ‘criminal wrongdoing’ and ‘civil fraud liability’ in connection with Medicaid billing practices, according to documents obtained by the Tulsa World.” The newspaper reports Tulsa Psychiatric Center board member Samuel C. Stone, a lawyer, sent other board members and Parkside officials a July 2, 2000, memo stating, “I am not willing to cut Parkside any more slack–not even for a day–as it is obvious to me that Parkside’s senior-most management has (i) recklessly endangered the entire institution, (ii) likely put numerous other Parkside employees at risk, and (iii) demonstrated a willful disregard for the very people the institution is responsible to serve.” The Tulsa World further reports that a “financial and operational audit was prompted by a request from Gov. Frank Keating after allegations of mismanagement and safety concerns were raised about mental health services at Parkside…. almost two dozen Parkside employees, including the hospital’s medical director at the time, signed a June memo raising the question of unethical and possibly ‘illegal’ billing practices by Parkside senior officials. The employees had expressed concerns about assigning room numbers to couches and benches in the Crisis Unit lobby where mentally ill people sometimes slept. This was done, the staff said, for billing purposes….Parkside provides hospitalization, treatment and outreach programs to mentally ill clients in Tulsa and Northeastern Oklahoma.” See this link.
November 2000. April is transferred from the state-run maximum-security Mabel Bassett Correctional Center women’s prison in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to the privately operated Central Oklahoma Correctional Facility, a medium-security women’s prison in McLoud, Oklahoma.
Nov 6, 2000. Notice of Recusal by Judge Charles Johnson for first appeal.
April 3, 2001, April’s direct appeal challenging the murder conviction was denied by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (“OCCA”). Although friend of Don Carlton, OCCA Judge Charles Johnson recused himself from voting in the decision on April Wilkens’s direct appeal, he did not for her following appeals. April is represented by attorney Bill Zuhdi through the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System. April’s attorney challenged April’s conviction on the grounds that the evidence was not sufficient to sustain a first-degree murder conviction, the jury was only given the option of convicting April of first-degree murder and should have been given the option of convicting her of manslaughter, April’s statements to police officers should not have been admitted because police failed to timely Mirandize her, and April’s taped statement to police downtown should not have been admitted because police coerced her into making that statement by telling her that she had to give the statement before she could receive a rape exam and medical care. Suspiciously, the OCCA failed to adhere to its own precedent on the manslaughter instruction issue when denying April’s direct appeal. The OCCA had previously ruled that juries must be given the option to convict first-degree murder defendants of lesser included offenses such as manslaughter when the evidence warrants, which did not happen at April’s trial. Other defendants’ convictions were overturned by the OCCA for this error, but not April’s. It is extremely rare for any court to fail to adhere to its own precedent, and OCCA Judge Gary Lumpkin remarked in a footnote in the order denying April’s appeal that he disagreed with the OCCA’s failure in April’s case to follow its own precedent. See next. Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals Case# F-99-927. See this site search for documents.
March 2002, Federal Judge Claire Eagan signs an affidavit in support of April’s story.
April 1, 2002, Attorney Michael D. Cooke signs an affidavit in support of April. See page 40 here. See also this letter from Cooke. Screenshots of more in file.
Apr 2, 2002+. April’s files a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (see this search for files?) in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma case #02-CV-244. She is initially represented by attorney David Blades then later represents herself. This federal challenge to April’s murder conviction is initially assigned to Senior Judge Thomas Brett, who does NOT disclose that he is the uncle of Rebecca Brett-Nightingale, the assistant prosecutor at April’s trial. Months later, April discovers they are related while reading a Tulsa World newspaper article wherein Rebecca Brett-Nightingale is dropping her uncle’s name while she is running for a Tulsa County District Court judgeship, which she won. After discovering they’re related, April asks Judge Thomas Brett to recuse and he does. His colleague Judge Terence Kern is then assigned to April’s federal habeas petition.
April 2, 2002, Lynda Driskell, PhD. writes a sworn affidavit in support of April. See page 38 and date below for August 9, 2009.
April 4, 2002. See these files. Oder and brief.
May 2, 2002, Byron Case is convicted for killing Anastasia WitbolsFeugen, not Justin Bruton, although the Carlton family seemed to believe and assume he killed her based on what Terry said to April.
May 17, 2002. The Daily Oklahoman newspaper publishes an article reporting the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals recently overturned and DISMISSED the first-degree manslaughter conviction of Saundra Kaye Medlin, a battered woman who admitted shooting her husband five times WHILE HE WAS SLEEPING. The decision is publicly hailed in the newspaper by domestic violence victims’ advocates as “a victory for women all over–to protect themselves and their children.” (Here’s a May 2 article) May 17 Article.
Jun 27, 2002. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (“OCCA”) OVERTURNS AND DISMISSES THE FIRST-DEGREE MANSLAUGHTER CONVICTION AND FOUR-YEAR SENTENCE OF A DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVOR, Saundra Kaye Medlin, in case # F-2001-558. Don Carlton’s friend, OCCA Judge Charles Johnson, is the Vice Presiding Judge of the court at this time and votes to reverse and dismiss along with three other judges. Judge Gary Lumpkin, Presiding Judge at the time, dissents. See this link for opinion.
Jan 13, 2003, second supplement.
Jan 30, 2003, Third supplement.
Feb 6, 2003, order.
Feb 27, 2003. Judge Terence Kern files an order staying April’s Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma case #02-CV-244. Turns out, April’s attorney, David Blades, filed this habeas petition in federal court prematurely, which could have resulted in April’s case being dismissed altogether with prejudice, because by law all claims made by a state prisoner convicted in state court must first be presented to the state courts before being heard in federal court. April begins representing herself moving forward.
March 5, 2003+, April files for post-conviction relief in district court. Her 1st Post-Conviction Application in the murder case in Tulsa County District Court case# CF-98-2173. Judge Rebecca Brett-Nightingale, the assistant prosecutor at April’s trial, is initially assigned to handle this challenge to April’s conviction. DA Tim Harris argues against her even though he is friends with Terry’s father, Don Carlton. April has no attorney and represents herself (motion). April argues that her trial and direct appeal attorneys were ineffective for failing to discover and present the audiotape of Terry admitting he raped, beat, and choked her and that he was the sole perpetrator of violence between them; failing to present now-Judge Claire Eagan‘s testimony about the tape and her representation of April in the November 1996 protective order; failing to present the outstanding warrant for Terry’s arrest issued after he failed to appear in court after being arrested outside her home with a loaded, chambered Glock 9mm pistol on February 21, 1998; failing to present the results of her negative urinalysis from the day of the shooting, which was negative for all drugs; failing to present testimony from a legitimate Battered Woman Syndrome expert…and failing to impeach Officer Laura Fadem by presenting her conflicting testimonies given in the presence of the jury and in their absence.
March 10, 2003, letter from David Blades.
March 27, 2003 response for post-conviction relief application. Motion to Suppliment.
Late April 2003. The state-run maximum-security Mabel Bassett Correctional Center women’s prison in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where April was housed from March 2000 to November 2000, moves to McLoud, Oklahoma, after the state takes over the Central Oklahoma Correctional Facility where April has been housed since November 2000. Following the move and takeover, Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McLoud, Oklahoma, becomes a maximum, medium, and minimum-security prison for women. April remains imprisoned at the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McLoud, Oklahoma.
May 7, 2003+, April’s files a motion requesting Judge Rebecca Brett-Nightingale, who was the assistant prosecutor at April’s trial, assistant prosecutor to then-DA Tim Harris, be removed from handling her 1st Post-Conviction Application in the murder case in Tulsa County District Court case# CF-98-2173. Judge Michael Gassett, the judge at April’s trial, is later assigned to handle this challenge to her conviction. See this link.
May 12, 2003, Amended application.
May 22, 2003, order.
Jul 20, 2003+. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an article titled “DA, Law Officers in Feud” wherein wealthy Tulsan David Wheeler accuses DA Tim Harris of asking for money to prosecute his father’s murderer. Indignant, David Wheeler is quoted saying, “You can’t give somebody money to prosecute. Everybody should be afforded equal protection under the law. They wanted money. We didn’t pay, and the result is obvious.” The suspect DA Tim Harris refuses to prosecute is later indicted by a Tulsa grand jury and dies in jail awaiting trial. April continues to believe Don Carlton has paid DA Tim Harris, at least in roundabout ways that appear legal, to prosecute her relentlessly.
August 11, 2003. The federal Tenth Circuit United States Court of Appeals rules in Oklahoma domestic violence survivor Teresa Vilene Paine‘s favor. The court’s opinion in Paine v Massie (339 F.3d 1194) reads this.
August 22, 2003, Aug 22, 2003. April’s 1st Post-Conviction Application in the murder case is denied by trial Judge Michael Gassett in Tulsa County District Court case# CF-98-2173. DA Tim Harris argued against April even though he is friends with Terry’s father, Don Carlton. In the court order denying April’s 1st Post-Conviction Application, Judge Gassett adopts DA Harris’ arguments almost verbatim. April had no attorney and represented herself. 1st Post-Conviction Application. See this link for letters.
September ? 2003. April filed for post-conviction relief.
September 9, 2003, motion filed. April files her 1st Post-Conviction Application Appeal/Petition in Error in the murder case in the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (“OCCA”) in case # PC-2003-1002. Although OCCA Judge Charles Johnson is friends with Terry’s father, Don Carlton, and recused in April’s direct appeal, Judge Johnson does NOT recuse in this appeal. April has no attorney and represents herself.
December 9, 2003, order directing response from the attorney general (signed by Judge Charles Johnson)
March 12, 2004, Don Carlton drops wrongful death suit against April (see page 3) after April counter sued for assault and rape. She wrote “He had his attorney send me a letter asking me to agree to drop my suit with prejudice (so I could not refile it) if he would drop the wrongful death suit after the audiotape surfaced of Terry admitting to beating & raping me. I agreed because I could not deal with it at the time. This man has been using the legal system to do his dirty work for far too long.” See this file. It is dropped with prejudice in Tulsa County District Court. Following discovery wherein April lists as evidence the audiotape of Terry admitting he raped, choked, and beat her and also includes Judge Clair Eagan on the witness list, April receives a letter from Don Carlton’s attorneys stating that Don Carlton is offering to drop his wrongful death lawsuit against her if she will drop her counter claims of rape and abuse. April agrees because she is just so overwhelmed representing herself and does not want to go through another trial or put her family through one. Plus, April is also representing herself fighting her murder conviction, and defending herself in the civil lawsuit at the same time is just too much for her to handle alone.
May 19, 2004. Motion filed.
May 28, 2004, Response to Application
July 8, 2004, Motion filed.
August 2, 2004, 1st Post-Conviction Application Appeal/Petition in Error Denied. April’s subsequent appeal denied by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (“OCCA”) in case# PC-2003-1002. Although OCCA Judge Charles Johnson is friends with Terry’s father, Don Carlton, and recused in April’s direct appeal, Judge Johnson does NOT recuse this time and votes to deny this appeal. April had no attorney and represented herself. See this evidence that they were friends long-time friends before the trial. Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals Case# PC-2003-1002. No attorney, represented herself. See next. denied by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (“OCCA”) in case# PC-2003-1002.
August 18, 2004, Amended brief filed.
August 25, 2004, clarification filed.
Sept. 2, 2004, Request for Renew of Actual Innocence Claim
Oct 12, 2004, Order.
Nov 10, 2004, Order.
Dec 2004, various documents filed, including order.
July 21, 2006, The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an article titled “DA’s Race Among Most Moneyed” wherein Terry’s father, Don Carlton, is quoted saying that he and DA Tim Harris became personal friends after Terry’s death in April 1998. The article also reveals that Don Carlton is an ardent financial supporter of DA Tim Harris’s 2006 reelection campaign and that Don Carlton even hosted a reception to raise money for DA Tim Harris. See this link
August 2006 April is in the first MBCC Rodeo Team and competed in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary rodeo in 2006.
Sept. 15, 2006. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals overturns the conviction of domestic violence survivor Pearl Smith and grants her a new trial. Judge Gary Lumpkin writes the courts opinion and Judge Charles Johnson writes an opinion specially concurring. Judge Lumpkin’s opinion in Smith v State (144 P.3d 159) reads thus. Talks about battered woman syndrome.
Nov 18, 2006. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an article titled “Donor Reports Missing the Mark” by Curtis Killman, reporting Tulsa DA Tim Harris violated state ethics rules by failing to disclose the occupation and/or employer of 240 campaign contributors. Harris is quoted saying he “understands the rule is meant to identify potential conflicts of interest….” The Ethics Commission Executive Director is quoted saying the “commission can levy fines of as much as $1,000 per violation of rule.” See The Oklahoman. See TW article.
March-April 2007. See this link to files from this time period.
May 16, 2007. Motion & Tim Harris info.
Nov. 5, 2007. April’s Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus in the murder case is denied in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma case #02-CV-244. April challenged her conviction based on the same injustices she previously presented in Tulsa County District Court and the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. April represented herself. See this file. (initially represented by Attorney David Blades? – see 2003. See this file).
April 16, 2008, Appeal from judgement part 1 & 2
April 17, 2008. Order.
April 28, 2008. See this document.. April requests to appeal her murder conviction in the United States Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals case # 07-5172. April has no attorney and represents herself.
August 5, 2008. April’s request to appeal in the murder case is denied in the United States Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals case #07-5172. April had no attorney and represented herself. See this link to files. Exhibits at this link(?).
September 2, 2008. Hearing denied.
Sep 16, 2008. Former Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Stephen Lile is disbarred by the Oklahoma Supreme Court due to “the seriousness of [his] misconduct while serving in his position as a judge on the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals.” Lile resigned while under investigation by the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office amid allegations of improper spending and intervention in a criminal case involving his son. The Oklahoma Supreme Court opinion disbarring Lile states Lile “stipulated that he had created the perception of undue influence on the district attorney to decline to prosecute” his son. Before Lile resigned from the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, he voted to deny April’s direct appeal and 1st Post-Conviction Application Appeal/Petition in Error. See page 236 here.
Sep 17, 2008. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an article titled, “State High Court Disbars Former Appellate Judge” by Barbara Hoberock (see this link) reporting that former Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Stephen Lile was disbarred the previous day by the Oklahoma Supreme Court “because of ‘the seriousness of [his] misconduct while serving in his position as a judge on the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals,’ an opinion states….Lile was under investigation by Attorney General Drew Edmondson’s office when he resigned in 2005 amid allegations of improper spending and intervention in a criminal case involving his son, Loren Michael Wilson.” Further, the Tulsa World reports that Lile “‘stipulated that he had created the perception of undue influence on the district attorney to decline to prosecute,’ the Supreme Court opinion notes.” BEFORE HE RESIGNED FROM THE OKLAHOMA COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS WHILE UNDER INVESTIGATION, LILE VOTED TO DENY APRIL’S DIRECT APPEAL IN APRIL 2001 AND 1ST POST-CONVICTION APPLICATION APPEAL/PETITION IN ERROR IN AUGUST 2004.
Oct 28, 2008, petition filed. April files her first Petition for Writ of Certiorari in the murder case in the United States Supreme Court, case #08-7045. April has no attorney and represents herself.
January 12, 2009, April’s request/subsequent appeal (?), Writ of Certiorari in the murder case is denied in the United States Supreme Court case #08-7045 . See this link. No attorney, represented herself.
August 2009, April applies for commutation to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board for the first time. No attorney, represented self. She is later denied commutation without a hearing. She will apply again in 2015.
August 4, 2009, attorney Lynn Worley, who attended April’s trail, wrote to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board for April’s commutation request about how the state of Oklahoma treated April during these events.
August 9, 2009, Lynda Driskell, PhD., wrote to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board for April’s commutation request. Lynda is an expert on Battered Woman Syndrome.
August 10, 2009. Motions
August 25, 2009, April tries to disqualify Tim Harris in motion. Application for post-conviction relief also filed. April’s files her 1st and only Post-Conviction Application in the DRUG POSSESSION case in Tulsa County District Court case # CF-99-2575. April asserts in this challenge to her drug possession conviction that she has been denied fair and impartial due process of the law because of DA Tim Harris’s friendship with and financial ties to Terry’s father, Don Carlton, who has donated large sums of money to DA Harris and held at least one fundraiser for him as well. Sometime soon after Aug 25, 2009. April’s 1st and only Post-Conviction Application in the DRUG POSSESSION case is denied in Tulsa County District Court case # CF-99-2575. DA Tim Harris argued against April. April had no attorney and represented herself.
- Date? 2nd Post-Conviction Application in the murder case in Tulsa County District Court case# CF-98-2173. April asserts in this challenge to her murder conviction that she has been denied fair and impartial due process of the law because of DA Tim Harris’ friendship with and financial ties to Terry’s father, Don Carlton, who has donated large sums of money to DA Harris and held at least one fundraiser for him as well. April asserts DA Harris should have divulged his friendship with and financial ties to Don Carlton and recused himself from prosecuting her. April requests that DA Harris be disqualified from handling this challenge to her conviction as well. Further, April asserts she has also been denied fair and impartial due process of the law because of Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Charles Johnson’s friendship with Don Carlton and the fact that Judge Johnson voted to deny her 1st Post-Conviction Application Appeal/Petition in Error. The Tulsa County District Court does NOT disqualify DA Harris nor does DA Tim Harris recuse himself from arguing against this challenge to her murder conviction. April has no attorney and represents herself.
September 8, 2009, Response filed.
September 15, 2009. April’s 2nd Post-Conviction Application in the murder case is denied in Tulsa County District Court case# CF-98-2173. DA Tim Harris argued against April. April had no attorney and represented herself. See this link for documents.
September 18, 2009. Response to Petitioner’s…
September 24, 2009. Order denying…
October 2, 2009. April’s 2nd Post-Conviction Application Appeal/Petition in Error in the murder case is filed in the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals in case# PC-2009-873. April has no attorney and represents herself. April filed petition in error and brief for post-conviction appeal.
November 13, 2009. Appeal/Petition in Error Denied. April’s 2nd Post-Conviction Application Appeal/Petition in Error in the murder case is denied by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals in case# PC-2009-873. Despite the fact that April asserted she has been denied fair and impartial due process of the law in part because of Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Charles Johnson‘s friendship with Terry’s father, Don Carlton, Judge Johnson did NOT recuse himself and also voted to deny this appeal. April had no attorney and represented herself.
Feb 8, 2010. April’s 2nd request for Writ of Certiorari in the murder case is filed in the United States Supreme Court in case #09-9086. April has no attorney and represents herself.
April 19, 2010. April’s request for Writ of Certiorari in the murder case is denied in the United States Supreme Court in case #09-9086. April had no attorney and represented herself.
Nov 12, 2010. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an editorial titled “Scandal: How Far Will the Tulsa Police Probe Go?” saying, “The ripples–or should we say tidal wave–from a Tulsa police corruption scandal only get wider. On Wednesday, Donald K. Jordan, 30, became the 22nd inmate to be freed from prison or to have charges dismissed as part of a grand jury investigation into the Tulsa Police Department.” The editorial reports that so far seven “former or current Tulsa police officers face charges in the corruption probe that includes allegations of stolen drugs and money, falsified search warrants, witness tampering, attempted bribery and ghost informants. When the dust settles, the city of Tulsa could face multiple lawsuits from any of the 22 freed inmates, who are likely to claim civil rights violations….The public tends to think of these types of corruption probes as the stuff of big city police departments–happening in places such as New York City or Los Angeles. No matter how this scandal ends, the outcome will include costs–costs to people wrongly accused, costs to the TPD reputation, potential costs to taxpayers. And how do you put a price on the loss of public confidence?” See this link.
July 9, 2011. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an article titled “DA Stands Pat on Prosecution: A Son of a Slain Tulsa Businessman Says Authorities are ‘Too Corrupt’ to Prosecute Whitey Bulger” Bill Braun and Nicole Marshall. The article reports that Lawrence “Larry” Wheeler, tried to get the prosecution of one of the high-profile suspects in his father’s Tulsa murder moved out of Tulsa and “wrote to the US Attorney in Boston, Carmen Ortiz, that the local ‘environment is too corrupt and too self-motivated for a case of this magnitude’ to be brought to trial in Tulsa, the Boston Globe reported.” The Tulsa World newspaper reports that DA Tim Harris says he will handle the prosecution nonetheless.

RECENT EVENTS

April 15, 2012 Appellate Court Judge Charles Johnson officiated the marriage of Don Carlton’s granddaughter and Terry Carlton’s niece Jennifer Elizabeth Bruton (daughter of John David and Brenda Bruton and sister of Justin Bruton) to Shannon D. Green. Judge Johnson and Terry’s father, Don Carlton, are longtime friends. See August 1996 dates.
March 2013, April is eligible for parole for the first time. She is not represented by an attorney. The state parole investigator recommends she be released on parole. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board votes to grant her a parole hearing, but she is denied parole. April came up for parole in 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2022. Denied each time despite being recommended every time by different state parole investigators. Hearing granted in 2013 and 2019, but parole denied at hearing each time following Carlton’s protest. Tulsa DA protested parole as well.
May 2013. April’s parole hearing is held. She is not represented by an attorney. Following protests from Don Carlton and Tulsa DA Tim Harris, all five Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board members vote to deny April parole.
Sep 5, 2013. One of April’s longtime fellow prisoners at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, Michelle Murphy, who like April was prosecuted by Tulsa DA Tim Harris, files an Application for Post-Conviction Relief in Tulsa County District Court. Michelle is now represented by high-profile Tulsa attorneys Richard and Sharisse O’Carroll. The Co-Director of the New York-based Innocence Project, Barry Scheck, and one of the Innocence Project’s staff attorneys are also now helping Michelle prove her innocence. DA Tim Harris prosecuted Michelle at her trial in November 1995 when he was First Assistant DA, and she was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole at that time.
Nov 18, 2013. DA Tim Harris announces he will not seek re-election.
2014. April was one of the first six participants to complete the Guardian Angel Dog Training Program in 2014 and went on to teach other participants how to train rescued dogs.
May 23, 2014. DA Tim Harris receives a subpoena to testify about evidence in Michelle Murphy’s first-degree murder case. Judge William Kellough sets the evidentiary hearing for May 30, 2014.
May 29, 2014. DA Tim Harris files a motion requesting Michelle Murphy’s first-degree murder conviction and no-parole life sentence be vacated.
May 30, 2014. DA Tim Harris announces he filed a motion requesting Michelle Murphy’s first-degree murder conviction and no-parole life sentence be vacated, and the evidentiary hearing at which he was subpoenaed to testify ends without testimony. Michelle’s first-degree murder conviction and life without parole sentence are vacated in Tulsa County District Court by Judge William Kellough, and Michelle is released on $10,000 bond after nearly 20 years of incarceration.
May 31, 2014. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an article titled “Going Home: New Evidence: DNA Testing Results in Release” Bill Braun and Shannon Muchmore, reporting Michelle Murphy’s first-degree murder conviction and life without parole sentence in the death of her baby were vacated in Tulsa County District Court the previous day. See this link. The newspaper reports DA Tim Harris argued at Michelle’s trial that some blood found at the scene was not the victim’s, but DNA testing revealed it did belong to the victim. The newspaper quotes DA Tim Harris, who prosecuted Michelle in 1995 when he was First Assistant DA, saying, “I came forward as a minister of justice and as the lead prosecutor and said, ‘Hey, there was an allegation I made during closing argument that turned out to be not an accurate statement.’…When I realized that the DNA evidence proved that my argument that it was not the child’s blood was incorrect–I’m making an argument to the jury that I find out on science was not an accurate statement–my heart of hearts says I gotta make that right, and that’s what I did.” Michelle is quoted saying, “I want to learn to have a life I’ve been denied for 20 years,” and that the past two decades in prison have been “like hell.” See this link.
Sep 5, 2014. DA Tim Harris receives a subpoena to testify at a September 12, 2014, hearing involving whether he has complied with discovery requirements in Michelle Murphy’s first-degree murder case.
Sep 12, 2014. DA Tim Harris dismisses the murder charge against Michelle Murphy, saying he cannot retry the case. Michelle is exonerated and declared innocent in Tulsa County District Court by Judge William Kellough. Her first-degree murder conviction and no-parole life sentence are overturned and dismissed with prejudice.
Oct 13, 2014. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes Part Two of a story titled “Shadow of Doubt: The Conviction and Exoneration of Michelle Murphy” by Cary Aspinwall and Ziva Branstetter reporting that not only did DA Tim Harris wrongfully prosecute Michelle Murphy following the death of her infant son in 1994, he also “took away her 2-year-old daughter, placing the girl with another family….Her daughter, now 22, told the World she is not interested in getting to know her mother.” The newspaper also reports that one of Michelle’s defense attorneys, Richard O’Carroll, said DA Tim “Harris should apologize to Murphy for getting the facts wrong.” See this link.
Oct 14, 2014. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an editorial titled “Innocent” with Wayne Greene listed as Editorial Pages Editor, declaring, “This is going to sound as if we are patting ourselves on the back– and we are. In this case, Tulsa World reporters and editors, in a series of articles and video recordings, thoroughly reported the case of Michelle Murphy, who was wrongfully convicted and sent to prison for 20 years….World reporters Cary Aspinwall and Ziva Branstetter, along with others have covered this story as it unfolded. Aspinwall and Branstetter drilled into the series, bringing readers a unique and important example of the sort of journalism only a newspaper can do.” As April reads this editorial, she wishes Tulsa World reporters would be allowed to do the same in her case, but she doubts that will ever happen because the various local Don Carlton auto dealerships owned by Terry’s family have spent A LOT of money advertising with the Tulsa World. See this link.
Oct 31, 2014. Tulsa County District Court Judge William Kellough issues a ruling that documents DA Tim Harris wants remained sealed in Michelle Murphy’s case will not be made public.
Nov 3, 2014. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes a story titled “Michelle Murphy: Achieving Milestones” by Ziva Branstetter, reporting “Innocence Project Co-Founder Barry Scheck said Murphy ‘suffered immeasurably’ during her trial and incarceration….’We know that tomorrow it could be any one of us,’ Scheck said.” The newspaper also quotes Rev. Marlin Lavanhar, senior minister at All Souls Unitarian Church, saying, “Cases like Michelle’s are not anomalies or even rare events….[Michelle] was robbed of her life by our society and some of the most respected people in our society–by judges, and police detectives and a jury of her peers.” See this link.
Nov 5, 2014. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an editorial titled “Transparency: Unseal the Murphy Case Records” with Wayne Greene listed as Editorial Pages Editor, declaring, “In the interest of justice, and public trust in the prosecution and judicial system, the records can and ought to be released. [DA Tim] Harris and [Judge William] Kellough both ought to take steps to make that happen. If the secret documents are as innocuous as they maintain, releasing them would do no harm and would certainly dispel suspicion.” See this link
Jan 7, 2015. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an editorial titled “Two New DAs” with Wayne Greene listed as Editorial Pages Editor, exclaiming, “Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler….won the…contest to replace the retiring Tim Harris, who has served the people of Tulsa County well for 16 years as district attorney and as an assistant DA before that. A 25-year prosecutor, Kunzweiler was Harris’ chief prosecutor and heir apparent….We have no doubt he will continue in the noble tradition of…Tim Harris into the future.” See this link
April 2015, April applies for Commutation for the second time to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board. She is later denied commutation without a hearing. No attorney, represented self.
July 30, 2015, April is in a college student documentary at Mabel Bassett for helping lead the dog adoption program, Bassett Tales.
July 31, 2014, Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Charles Johnson retires at the age of 83 after serving 25 years on that court, which is the highest Oklahoma state criminal court. Judge Johnson and Terry’s father, Don Carlton, are longtime friends.
Sep 13, 2014. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an article titled “Innocence Proclaimed” by Randy Krehbiel and Amanda Bland reporting Michelle Murphy was exonerated the previous day and declared innocent in Tulsa County District Court after DA Tim Harris said he would not retry the case. The newspaper reported DA Tim “Harris said the dismissal should not be viewed as as an exoneration….’Father Time,’ Harris said, made it impossible to reassemble the case.” Michelle is quoted saying, “I’ve always known I’m innocent. I wanted other people to know it, too.” See this link.
Sep 30, 2014. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an article titled “DA Gets Judge to Seal Murder File” by Cary Aspinwall, reporting that DA Tim Harris got Tulsa County District Court Judge William Kellough to let him file certain court documents related to Michelle Murphy’s case under seal on the same day that he dismissed her case in September 2014. The newspaper reports that “Harris was under subpoena to testify at an evidentiary hearing on Sept. 12, according to a court filing by Murphy’s attorneys….Rather than testify, District Attorney Tim Harris moved to dismiss the murder charge against (Murphy) and entered into an agreed Order finding that (Murphy) made a prima face case of actual innocence,’ states the application to unseal the documents in question.” See this link.
Oct 12, 2014. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes Part One of a story titled “Shadow of Doubt: The Conviction and Exoneration of Michelle Murphy” by Cary Aspinwall and Ziva Branstetter, reporting that “Prosecutor Tim Harris stood before jurors deciding Michelle Murphy’s fate and told them police found someone’s blood near her slain body–blood he implied could be hers. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, beyond a shadow of a doubt this woman killed her child,’ he said. What Harris didn’t tell the jury is that as the trial started Nov. 14, 1995, he possessed a report from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation that said Murphy’s blood type was different than the type found at the scene. That test determined DNA found at the scene was not hers, contradicting Harris’ implication to jurors about what the Tulsa police lab tests showed….More-advanced DNA testing this year proved the 1995 Tulsa police lab tests jurors were told about were inaccurate….Harris did not introduce the OSBI report at trial….” So Harris relied on the Tulsa Police’s faulty blood analysis to convict Michelle and did not tell her jury about the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation’s contradictory–and it turns out accurate–analysis that the blood was not hers. To make matters worse, the newspaper reports that DNA testing was previously completed in 2005 that proved the blood could not be Michelle’s and the results were mailed to DA Tim Harris at that time, but he claims he never received those results. And so Michelle languished nine more years in prison before finally being freed after spending nearly 20 years of her life behind bars. The newspaper includes a detailed timeline of Michelle Murphy’s prosecution and exoneration in the article.
Oct 13, 2014. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes Part Two of a story titled “Shadow of Doubt: The Conviction and Exoneration of Michelle Murphy” [ADD: by Cary Aspinwall and Ziva Branstetter]
Nov 21, 2014. The Tulsa World newspaper publishes an article titled “Are Tulsa Police Taking Rape Cases Seriously Enough?” by Samantha Reiser, an associate with the U.S. program of Human Rights Watch.
September 21, 2015 Robert Neigh, then-Tulsa county public defender, writes a letter to April saying she was done a great injustice.
March 4, 2016, attorney Debra Hampton writes a letter to April and states she too views Tim Harris as corrupt.
March 2016. April comes up for parole for the second time. She is not represented by an attorney. The state parole investigator again recommends she be released on parole. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board votes to deny her a parole hearing. April suspects Don Carlton protested again but has no way of confirming. April came up for parole in 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2022. Denied every time despite being recommended every time by different state parole investigators. Represented in 2022 by Attorney Glen Blake through the University of Tulsa’s Project Commutation and the Tulsa Public Defender’s Office. No attorney in 2013, 2016, 2019. Hearing not granted in 2016 or 2022. Hearing granted in 2013 and 2019, but parole denied at hearing each time following Carlton’s protest. Tulsa DA protested parole as well.
March 2019. April is eligible for parole for the third time. She is not represented by an attorney. The state parole investigator again recommends she be released on parole. All five Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board members vote to grant her a parole hearing.
May 7, 2019, April’s parole hearing is held. She is not represented by an attorney. Parole denied by a 2/3 vote. Following protests from Don Carlton and the Tulsa DA, two Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board members vote to grant April parole and three vote to deny her parole. At least one board member who votes no (Larry Morris) reportedly says at the hearing that it’s because of Terry’s family’s protest. It takes a majority vote to receive a parole recommendation, so April is again denied parole. Oklahoma parole board votes: Judge Allen McCall: NO, Larry Morris: NO, Adam Luck: YES, Kelly Doyle: YES, Steven Bickley: NO. One supporter of April said the board gave “the weakest arguments I have ever heard. One said she had not served enough time, one said the crime was savage. The other said it was because of the victims family statements. It was a travesty of justice.” April came up for parole in 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2022. No attorney in 2013, 2016, 2019. Hearing not granted in 2016 or 2022. Hearing granted in 2013 and 2019, but parole denied at hearing each time following Carlton’s protest. Tulsa DA protested parole as well.
June 2020, NBC Dateline special focuses on two Tulsa brothers former-DA Tim Harris allegedly forced into confessions
In 2020, April helped create and organize the ROSE Network that keeps family and friends of MBCC prisoners connected and informed about issues at MBCC.
Around January 2021, April learns about Byron Case being convicted for killing Anastasia WitbolsFeugen.
In 2021, April became the first and so far only woman to make over a million dollars for TruEnergy, an energy brokerage firm. It only took her about four years to accomplish that feat. In 2017, she was one of 10 women at MBCC chosen by TruEnergy to open its first female site, and one of the first two selected to actually become energy brokers. She also designed and coordinated the firm’s Closer Academy, a training program consisting of months of classes and a one-year internship, which teaches women and men how to become successful energy brokers, a job skill they can use to make a good living.
January 27, 2022, Don Carlton passes away, but not before a protest letter is sent against April’s upcoming parole submissions in February 2022.
February 6, 2022 former-DA Tim Harris runs for Tulsa District 7 school board since he cannot get elected anywhere else.
March 1, 2022, April comes up for parole for the fourth time. She is represented by attorney Glen Blake through the University of Tulsa’s Project Commutation and Tulsa Public Defender’s Office. April is recommended for parole by the parole investigator, just as she has been in 2013, 2016, and 2019. She submits her parole “jacket.” Terry’s family protests. The state parole investigator again recommends April be released on parole.
March 3, 2022, The only woman on the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, Kelly Doyle, resigns. She was the only previous YES vote for parole still on the board for April Wilkens when she came up for parole in the past. In the span of a year, the board has completely changed except for Larry Morris.
March 7, 2022, April’s parole jacket is voted on. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board votes to deny her a parole hearing. Three members vote no and only one votes yes. April not even granted a parole hearing by all-male board down one member after Kelly Doyle resigned days before (Scott Williams, Edward J. Konieczny, Richard Smothermon all voted NO). Larry Morris the only YES vote to advance. She is therefore denied parole again. April previously came up for parole in 2013, 2016, 2019. Denied every time despite being recommended every time by different state parole investigators. Represented in 2022 by Attorney Glen Blake through the University of Tulsa’s Project Commutation and the Tulsa Public Defender’s Office. No attorney in 2013, 2016, 2019. Hearing not granted in 2016 or 2022. Hearing granted in 2013 and 2019, but parole denied at hearing each time following Carlton’s protest. Tulsa DA protested parole as well. Meanwhile, the Crossbow Killer, Jimmie Stohler, gets a full recommendation from the board after his hearing in the same meeting. What is the point of sentencing April to Life with the possibility of parole if there is nothing she can do to attain parole? She has done everything right to be granted it. She might as well have been sentenced to life without.
March 7, 2022. After being denied a hearing, a new VNN story comes out about April.
Late March 2022, VNN is able to get a copy of the protest letter from Steve Kunzweiler’s office they sent to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board. April is sent a response in writing from the Parole Investigator, Brittany King, who has recommended April several times to move forward with Parole, on the reason they denied her a parole hearing. See this link for more context. An online Change.org petition is started for April, asking Governor Kevin Stitt and the OK pardon and parole board to commute her sentence.
June 28, 2022 a podcast about April Wilkens called Panic Button: The April Wilkens Case is released, sponsored by Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. FOX23 covers the story here and here.
September 13, 2022, Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law & Justice works with Oklahoma State Representative Toni Hasenbeck for interim study on Criminalized Survivors. See also this post. Here is the KOCO coverage.
September 14, 2022, VNN covers the interim study. And, the Tulsa World and others.
Sept. 19, 2022, VNN & Big if True cover April’s case.
Sept. 23, 2022, Fox23 covers the season finale of Panic Button.
Sept. 24, 2022, Tulsa’s Center for Public Secrets hosts a panel with the Panic Button podcast hosts and other advocates. Read a statement about the event and for more context from April’s family member on Facebook. See Oct. 12 entry as well.
Sept. 30. April’s attorneys Colleen McCarty and Leslie Briggs file post conviction relief for April. View documents that later went public that following Monday, Oct. 3, 2022 on the OSCN site but with OCR to make them text-searchable here.
Oct. 1, 2022. Channel 8 covers April’s case.
Oct. 4, 2022. Channel 8 news story covers April’s third attempt at Post Conviction Relief.
Oct. 12, 2022. A bonus episode of panic button airs.
Oct. 24, 2022. April’s attorney, Colleen McCarty, talks about criminalized survivors on a panel, mentioning April’s story, hosted by LOHM.
Oct. 26, 2022. DA files for an extension before responding to above PCR.
Nov. 28, 2022. STATE’S RESPONSE TO PETITIONER’S THIRD APPLICATION FOR POST-CONVICTION RELIEF AND MOTION FOR RECUSAL AND FOR NEW VENUE

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Timeline of Events (Long Version, with Hyperlinked Documentation)

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